Tape 7Interview with Tom and Pearl Wakeham made at their home in Totnes in 1994Note there are 2 tapes which have been transcribed as 4 sides.

Side 1APeter - bold Tom - normal Pearl – italic Unintelligible / Uncertain

Begins with Peter questioning Tom:

What I didn’t ask you last time was some biographic details. Where were you born?Bow Bridge.

Bow Bridge?

Tuckenhay. Yes. Waterman’s

Is that the name of the house?

It’s a pub.

Oh you were born in a pub?

That’s why I’m a teetotaller.

And you said you were born in?

1914.

So your father owned the pub?

He didn’t then but he did after.

He worked in the pub at the time? Or your mother?

They rented it. They became the owners later.

So were your parents papermakers? Or in the papermaking industry?

No.

Not in the papermaking industry at all?

Yes. Grandfather, on my mothers’ side.

And did he work as a fitter or did he work in the vat room?

Papermaker. Well he did originally. As they got older they used to go on the rag house and driers and that sort of thing. He was foreman in the rag house before he retired.

And what was his name?

Pike.

And his first name?

Humm.

It’s a test. Do you know Pearl? No, well, we’ll leave it go?

It was always grandfather ….

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We’ll call him Mr Pike! And on your mom’s side? Your mother’s name was? It’s like a test!

... What her Christian name you mean? Daisy …

And your father’s name?

Bert.

And so he was a Wakeham then?

They were farmers.

From the Wakeham side? The farmers had the natural inclination towards working on things then huh? … Did you go to school?

Not here in Tuckenhay. Ashprington Church School.

And Ashprington, you had to walk there? But its not too far? Six miles?

No! Wouldn’t be more than two miles.

And how old were you when you went to school? Do you remember?

Started at five, went till I was fourteen.

OK and at fourteen you …

… at fourteen I left school.

What did you do then?

Worked on a farm

For how long?

Actually, I became a motor mechanic then didn’t I. I never did an apprenticeship as a motor mechanic. I just sort of fell into it. …

Joined the army when you were … eighteen, nineteen …

So you worked on the farm and then joined the army …

For five years

And I can’t quite get the years right. Is that when a war was going on?

No. No.

That was between the wars in the thirties.

So that was during the Depression then. Did you do a National Service kind of job?

Yes really that’s when I joined up, was during the Depression. There were no more jobs for motor mechanics and I didn’t want to stay on the farm. I joined the Tank Corps.

And after that you returned … well after that what was next?

I came back and became a motor mechanic.

And what did the motor mechanic do at the time.

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Well

Everything

Everything on a motor-car.

So it was like a garage mechanic would be?

Yes. That’s right.

And did they have the equivalent to a gas station at the time?

Oh yes, yes

But he didn’t do that.

No, I was I was on engines, … cylinder boring …

And where did you work

Harrison’s Garage.

Here in Totnes?

Yes, here on the Plains.

And where did you live at the time? In Totnes …

Harbertonford.

So you lived in Harbertonford. Which is about …

Four or five miles away.

So did you have a car at the time or did you walk in and out?

Motor scooter.

You had a motor scooter. So then how did it happen that you started working at the mill?

Well in the motor business I started doing re-boring, cylinder re-boring. And apparently I was good at it. They started giving me more and more of it. In fact the local garage was doing all the cylinder boring for all the garages all round. All the time I was boring cylinders. And I was bored with it. And this job came out Tuckenhay. And I thought I’d try it and I went out …

So how did you hear about the job?

They approached him

They approached me actually. Would I be interested?

… couldn’t get a reliable maintenance man …

Now who was the owner then?

Well Millbourn was the owner then. Dr Millbourn himself. But they sold up during the couple of weeks that I was transferring out there, sold up to the other chap. Harrison?

So it was sold right when you moved there. Now did they have … Now what job did you have there … One time you told me it was the fitter. Was there another name for the job, or …

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Well they called it the fitter. It was general maintenance on the machinery. And when I started there, there was only a carpenter, who had been there for years, and myself. Doing the electrical equipment, and mechanical, turning, oh everything, welding, forge work.

Yeah?

Generally ran the machinery. The main part of it was a gas engine. Producer gas. 130 horsepower Ruston and Hornsby.

And spell the name of that? When I looked at the tape [from the last interview] I thought you said ‘a rusting Hornsby’, like it was a really old one! But I know that’s wrong!

R-u-s-t-o-n. I think that was it. Ruston and Hornsby, but shortened to Ruston-Hornsby. Well known firm and they still make stuff now. So they called it the Ruston-Hornsby gas engine.

And how did they get the gas.We produced or own gas. You just put coal in a retort. And it made its own gas. A producer gas engine, that’s what they called it.

It wasn’t coal . Anthracite they used didn’t they. Not coal.

Well, yes.

Which was a form of … It was a refined coal

Very hard coal. Welsh. And of course there was a water turbine there, as well.

So this brings up a question for me. I know that, from talking to some other papermakers, it seems like the only way that people got the job [at the paper mill] was pretty much being the son of a papermaker. People couldn’t just say ‘Oh, I think I’ll be a papermaker.” Because all the jobs were taken up by families. Was that the case pretty much?

Pretty much. Yes. There were a few filtered in, like, farm labourers sons that went in as boys, cleaning up and messing about and got into it. But largely they were paper maker’s sons.

And how about for the fitters jobs, Do you think … was there ever a family of fitters?

Didn’t seem to be no. I mean a chap caught me up … thirty years or something …*

He came here after the First World War. He came in …I don’t think we was there before the war was he?

I don’t think so. Richard Cann he was called.

Say the name? Richard C-a-n?

C-a-n-n.

Oh yes. I know some Cann’s! And he was the fitter before you. That did …

In the 20s … 30s … and 40s … before when Tom took over.

I see. Now specifically I was interested in a couple of things. One thing was about the moulds and what you were called on to do with the moulds when you were a fitter. Did you ever have to make anything new up, like a new deckle or was there a mould maker [at the mill] that you had that …

Actually the carpenter used to make, mostly the deckles were made by people up-country. Maidstone, Kent. The firm …oh dear, can’t remember who made them now.

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[Sound of car-horns outside] Did we get an accident out there?

Aimes probably. So the other guy, the chippy, what was his name, the carpenter guy?

Perce Willings.

P-e-r-c-y from Percival right?

Perce.

Williams?

Willings. And his father had been the carpenter at the mill before him, and I think his father before him.

So that was pretty much a follow-down-the-line.

Yes. Yes. Yes.

And he did all the woodwork. So he would do all the mould woodwork? [This question was misleading. Williams only repaired the woodwork of moulds. He would not make new ones.

Yes.

But if there was wire work, that’s where you would be called on? Is that the difference?

He did a bit as well but I used to do most of it.

If they needed a new watermark.

If they needed complete new watermark it went to Aimes. But I would make pieces of them, and change the date of them. Often the date was this year and I’d change it. I’d make the letter up for that, and that sort of thing.

Did you sew most of the watermarks or were the soldered?

Pretty well sewn on. They didn’t like soldering. I preferred soldering myself, but they wouldn’t. I tried to get them to, but they always swore that the solder left a mark. Not because of the, I pointed out to them I could solder them without. You know if you get a big blob of solder, but I could do it without that, without any trouble. But they swore that the different metals ended up marking the paper. But quite honestly I never saw any difference.

Yeah, well (to Pearl) so how did your family. What was your family’s relationship to papermakers?

Well my grandfather was a Cox … Kitty Cox

Yeah, I know Kitty, right.

… he came down from Maidstone … with Arthur Millbourn when he started the Mill at Tuckenhay in 1889. And was there a paper mill here before?

Yes

Symons and Turner. That’s right?

Yes that’s right. But when Arthur Millbourn took over, he bought a nucleus of professionals from Maidstone, and some from Wookey Hole. And Tom’s granddad came from, Wales?

Um, No I think he was at …

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Any way, he bought papermakers from all over, some from Wales, from the handmade paper mills.

So was the mill here a hand mill when he bought it? Or was it not working at the time? Or was it closed down?

It had been a hand mill originally and then it became a mould mill, and it didn’t pay, and then ….

So in Symons’ time

…. they rebuilt it.

As a hand mill? And so when Millbourn bought it, was it a running mill? Or had it gone into bankruptcy.

No, no it was a running …

Millbourn was the manager, papermaker when they opened ... for …

Symons?

No … yes. Symons himself. ‘Cos Symons put in this paper machine. An Escher Wyss standard. [This was a mouldmade paper machine]

Hmm Hmm.

That made paper on the mould, same as handmade, different shakes.

Really?

Yeah, a bit of a blueprint *…

Oh yeah, you told me about that it.

I don’t know what happened to it in the end. But the point is that, Millbourn, no Symons, as the owner, was a bit against the, I think they called themselves the Paper Association. It was sort of the papermaker’s union. [Original Society of Papermakers]

Yeah,

And they … they … I haven’t got all the information sometimes.

Oh, so the papermaker’s wouldn’t work for him?

Hmm, yeah.

So he bought in local labour, and taught them to make paper. He must have been a papermaker himself I think. But he knew how to do it anyway, if he wasn’t one. But he taught them, and they was making paper and the Papermakers Association called them scowbankers … I don’t know if you’ve run into that word?

I’d heard the word, but I didn’t know what its origination was.

Well the scowbankers say, were people that were not …

Apprenticed

Un-apprenticed papermakers were making paper. And they were making paper at Tuckenhay. And they were making a good job of it. And they, this Paper Association, managed to get them outlawed with the paper trade. So he couldn’t sell his paper.

Hmmm

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So all his stock piled up. And he just literally packed the whole lot in and closed the mill down, and sort of went off, and sold it. Apparently his son and some local businessmen sold it off for him, and they took the thing and the put Arthur Millbourn in at the head of it.

‘Cos he was working here at the time?

No. ‘Cos he was a papermaker. And they called it Arthur Millbourn & Co. And he I think bought them out gradually, and eventually or something. And it became Millbourn’s home anyway

I see and so he then got regular papermakers with the cards, the legal papermakers.

He bought them in from all over

The union men. Like. And also he demolished the paper machine. Smashed it in and put in hand vats.

OK

The paper machine, this Escher and Wyss, there was a lot of stories about it. Papermakers putting clinkers and all sorts of things in it, to jam it up.

Oh

And old Perce Willing, who was a carpenter [told me]. His father was the engineer carpenter then, told him all about it and said the paper this machine made was, they couldn’t, this thing shouldn’t hand make paper, this was what they were worried about because it was the single pattern, the moulds went in and …

And old Perce Willing, who was a carpenter, his father was the engineer carpenter then. He told him all about it, and said the paper this machine made was, this thing couldn’t hand make paper. This was what they were worried about. Because it was the single pattern. The moulds went in and in the same..

So that’s why the papermakers didn’t like it, because it was too … [perfect]

Oh yes.

Ok so both of your grandfathers, then came to the area because of Millbourn asking for papermakers. You’re from the Coxes family, your family was the … the papermaking side of the family, what was the last name?

Pike.

Pike, right, and they came from …

Harry Pike it was, wasn’t it.

And where did he come from? Wales did you say …

No … um … Basingstoke was it?

There’s a mill there.

Yes several mills actually. Whether that was, whether he lived there, I don’t know. The papermakers, they used to call themselves journeymen, I’d say, and they used to go from mill to mill all over the country.

I’ve heard about that.

Journeymen. Whether … if a journeyman came to the mill they used to give him a couple of days …

But I think Grandfather Cox he used …

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Hold on, wait I’ll come back in a second. It’s getting confusing … So they wander around.

Yes journeymen, they used to travel within the country from mill to mill. And it was one of them union rules. Like, jobbing and painting* And they used to pay them for two days work anyway, and that’s, they had to give them work.

And what sort of work would they do?

Oh, making paper.

Work at the vats, or would they make him do the worst job or could he do any job?

Basically he’d be a vatman, because a vatman was supposed to do all … because actually when they worked the vat, although they had a vatman, a coucher, a layer, they were the three weren’t they, and perhaps a fourth … but they all had to do the job, and they would change out. The vatman used to get tired … and then he’d change over like, after so long.

Did you notice that they always changed out, or did you notice that some people stuck always with couching if they could?

Well they always did at Tuckenhay … that’s the only experience I’ve got!

At Tuckenhay you saw them always rotate, nobody stuck with one job?

No, they’d always change over. I think the vatman would do the bulk of the vat work, like, but others would take a turn to um …

(Now, somebody, well I guess Cyril, was saying that they try to get so if they got good enough they’d let them change out for them, the people that were learning. Well anyway the point of it is) Do you think the travelling papermakers would just be the change-out job or were they put as one of the three on the team?Well quite honestly I never saw a journeyman while I was at Tuckenhay mill. The journeyman had more or less died out. I think they died out somewhere at the time of either after the First World War or before. There never seemed to be any after …

Alright. Well let’s move back to grandfather Cox now. It’ll be confusing but … he came from Maidstone and …

I think he actually did his apprenticeship at Wookey Hole because he had brothers and all that still at Wookey Hole, and grandfather, his father, still lived at Wookey Hole.

What was that at papermaking? So I know when I was at Maidstone. talking to one of the vatmen there. he was saying that the Coxes were one of the families there.

Yes that’s right yeah. They sort of … you know went to-and-fro between mills I think.

OK so, and he married, your grandfather Cox. What was his first name? Did I ask already … his Christian name?

Frank

Frank. Ok and he married? Who did he marry … your grandmother, do you know?Um. Susie? Margaret * was my grandmother. But his wife died. My grandmother died. And he came down Tuckenhay.

Wifeless, when he came to Tuckenhay?

Yes, and he married Susie Eden, a local girl from Tuckenhay. That was Sam’s mother.So Sam was born from Susie Eden

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Yes in Tuckenhay. All the brothers.And Ron Eden then must be somehow related to those Eden families?

Yes Ron was … Ron’s granddad …. was Susie’s … brother.So was the Eden family a papermaking family before Susie married Frank Cox, do you think? Or you don’t know?

Oh yes.

They would have been … they would have worked in the mill there all along

Yeah, they were there. Um, I think they were more, how do I put it, more on the labouring side than the papermaking side, but they were in the mill.

Yes, it’s quite interesting, in our last conversation I became interested in the labouring side. I’m interested in what you have to say about that side of the team that helped make the paper. You can’t say that the vatmen were the only ones made the paper.

Well my dad was a labourer, he worked in the beater house where they pulped the paper.

Beater?

Beater house. He worked there.

OK so your fathers name was …

Frank Bastin. And he worked …

And how did it get from Cox to Bastin?

My mother was a Cox.

And you father

Was Bastin

And was he a Tuckenhay … born? Was he a local?

Yes

And did they work in the paper mill?

No. No he went into the paper mill and worked,

Was your family, the Bastin’s farmers then?

Farm labourers, yes. And … I’m trying to think. He went into the mill with old Frank Cox, who was a beaterman before Sam and his other brother took over. But the old Frank Cox, he took his son-in-law, who was his helper in the beater house. That’s how he got the job. In those jobs were a bit short, so he got the job.

So your father worked in the beater room. And do you remember him telling stories about things that happened? Any that if you pried down in your mind you could pull up?

… um

Things about rags? Would he bring stories like those home or did they mostly stay at the shop?

Mmm .. mostly stayed …

Do you know much about …

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When the old foreman was there, who was Aiston …

Spell that please ..

A-i-s-t-o-n. He was Pat [Perce]Aiston and he came to the mill with Millbourn. Another one that came from Maidstone. And he was the foreman. But if the papermakers said to him this stuff is wrong, it’s the wrong length or can’t make it because it’s too short or something, he would get the mould, and go and make a sheet …

Yeah

Or two and get them couched and say look if I can do it, you can do it

And if you can’t, go!

That’s good!He was a real papermaker.So how often did it happen? That they would beat a load that would be un-makeable?Not often. The papermakers liked to complain, because they could stop work legitimately…And get paidAnd get paid. So if they had a complaint, they had to get the foreman to say, “oh this stuff is wrong”, and that the beaterman had done it too….Yeah ...I mean occasionally things went wrong. Perhaps the, what did they call it the bar that went down?The rolls.The rolls went too hard and they broke it a bit short, the length, or it didn’t go down quite hard enough, and during the night somebody had left down a load that was perhaps a bit long …And what do you remember, Tom, from being in the mill? Do you remember them actually ruining a beater load very often, that was legitimate?No, not a lot of trouble like that. We had a bit of bother when we put the paper machine in, getting the lengths right for that.Well that’s interesting,Sometimes the colours wouldn’t be quite right, you know, and the foreman would come along and say, you know, put in the correct amount of what he’d given themBut it didn’t come out rightThe foreman always weighed up the colour and took it to the beaterman.Oh that’s interesting ‘cos I saw in Sam’s, or in those colour books that you had, that they showed how much of everything [to put in]Well the foreman kept the key. I mean the beaterman would often go to him and ask for the key and For the colours?For the colours you see. And sometimes there’d be an argument that one lot was slightly off, you know …Different colour …They’d take a sheet off a pack, take it up to be dried, and then they’d compare it with a waterleaf sheet of the previous night and if that was different. But in those days, they’d just continue to make that load anyway, and that was put into stock. [stock was paper to be sold at a later time]And then, if it was for an order?Yes, if it was for an order, they’d make another, sort of, beater, make sure that the color was right.Another beaterful, huh?Beaterful, as good as …So did …They didn’t throw out that, that’s what I’m trying to say.I see what you’re saying yes.They’d finish out, so many packs. And that would be marked for stock, you see, and then somebody would come along and want, perhaps, so much medium, or something or other. I mean there was all orders always coming in. A few reams of this, that, or the other. And then this stock would come out, but it was always finished. Went right through the process, and then put in the stock room as stock.OK. So your name is Pearl. And then what was your last name when you were born?BastenB-a-s-t-i-o-n?No, t-e-n.

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B-a-s-t-e-n. Got to get that right on here, or else I’ll never figure it out. OK, and do you mind saying when you were born?Er … 21.OK, in case you were shy or something.No I’m not! I’m living on borrowed time you see!OK and did you go to school too.Yes, at Ashprington.The same … till fourteen? And then what did you do?Went into the mill.And what did you do in the mill?Um … first of all I went into the drier, worked on the drierAnd they had the roll drier, the mechanical drier?Yes, yes, yes.Now was that considered a better job or a worse job?Oh it was a hot job, not a good job. You got out of there when you could. And then I went up to the size house, which was cooler but damper. And that was … I was oh 16, I suppose, 16 ½. There wasn’t enough going ther,e so I got a job minding … you know mother’s help. So I left the mill. Then I went back, late,r when they were hard up for workers, and did a bit.And what would you do when you went back? Same thing, or different jobs?Helping with sorting and on the rolls and different jobs then. It was only sort of part time, so I fitted in where they wanted somebody then.And did it seem that it took … well obviously you didn’t have any special skills, except for maybe, so it didn’t take any special skills to do any of the jobs that you did?No! It didn’t take a lot of special skills.The sorting I was …That was more, but then how do I put it,( it was, you either pick up a), I mean you roughly sorted things. All the good sheets was put out, and all the real broken was put out. And we put in a pile for retree, which one of the experienced sorters would sort through and do about three or four grades of retree, you know. There was some that they could lift just a tiny piece of fibre off, or take a loose deckle off. And that was sent away for best retree then. The experts would do that, but I mean anybody could sortinto three the grades - good paper, something that could be saved, or the waste.And did …Anybody could do that …What was the percentage, can you remember, on the times you did it, did it seem like it was pretty even …Well the broken, they were thrown out all the way through. When they came through, when you dried them, if it was too broken you threw them out then, before it went through. And then it went back in to be re-pulped. In the size house, you threw out bad broken again, and when it was rolled, they threw out anything that was really bad. So really, a lot of the broken was gone before it came to the actual sorting.So when you sorted, your pile would be mostly good or mostly retree?I should imagine about half-and-half, with a small percentage of broken.That’s sort of what you remember?Yes. As far as I remember. But the experts would sort of go through the retree and sometimes make it a good sheet.Now you said they wanted the deckle to be really, that they would trim the deckle. Did they want a very conforming deckle? Or did they want a wilder deckle? (what was)Yeah, wilder, mostly. You know the deckle edge was sort of the hallmark of most of the handmade paper. And yet, you see, there was some where they used to guillotine and cut it all off.And so of the deckle edge looked too straight, usually they’d …… have a picking knife.Ah, interesting. (Did the working of the moulds and deckle make any difference for how the, how the …) [she does not answer this question]A picking knife. That’s what they used to work the deckles. It’s sharp and they …I’ve seen these, they’re beautiful.This was mine.This was yours? Yes. Kitty had one too.That’s right, yes.Do these show up in the antique stores around here? I’d love to have one, someday. No they’re …

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I shouldn’t think. I shouldn’t think. I mean, this, when it was used you took it down the carpenter’s shop, and he would really make that point sort of lethal. So you’d take a tiny spot of dirt off a sheet and make no hole or anything. What I’m trying to say …Just slice right in, like a surgeonJust take it out like that. And then you would never see it. When the expert did it you’d never see it.That’s great.And then they used to dip certain papers, that was a terrible job. They had a vat of what they call lexpar wasn’t it. Legal papers were dipped. Hand dipped. You don’t have to … [Lexpar was the name of a line of paper that were also called Legal Parchment. We found that this solution is water soluable as it washes off when the paper is damped. ]Was that to make the parchmentized?That was the idea yes.So the process was … were they sized when they were dipped or were they not yet sized … do you remember?It was after they were sized.YeahAnd then they were dipped.And were they glazed before they were dipped?Um no, I don’t think they was glazedBut they were rolled …Yes, yes, yes. And then (they would) that paper, very often, was hot-pressed afterwards. So it had a real surface, after this dip was on, and it was dried again, then rolled in the zinc plates you know, and then it would be hot-pressed, but the hot press was sort of, not zinc was it the plates…Iron, I think iron plates…No but what they put between the papers.Oh, zincThey weren’t zinc were they? Yeah zinc. What I saw there was a large, well like, they put these iron plates in, they’d be ½” thick perhaps, and all these papers were put in there, and steam was put on them to raise the temperature. These iron plates …Was it critical, the temperature they were?Yes …No I don’t think so …‘Cos it used to blow off, the oven, didn’t itYes, but I mean, I suppose the temperature would be about 212. It wasn’t under great pressure or anything. But they used to have to handle it with felts. They’d put one of these plates, a zinc liner, then so many sheets of paper, just depending on what sort it was I suppose, another zinc liner, another iron plate and so on, filled up in a hydraulic press, and then,It was a press was it?Put it under pressure.And just leave it standing under pressure?Yes, yes,For 24 hours …Until they were cold(So they would make that big …) So those would have already been rolled once right?Oh yes.So they were rolled then they put them in the hot plates and put them in a standing press and just leave them under pressure, until they cooled down?Yes, yes.Interesting, and how did that affect the paper? Could you see it? When it came out did it look different, hot-pressed compared to just cold pressed?Yes much higher …SurfaceSurface, you know …Yeah. More glazed I guess?Yes, it was a much higher glaze. But what they used it for, I’ve no idea …

I think there was a little more to it that that. I mean, at the time I was at the mill we did very little, if any of it. I think we did a bit, but they seemed to have packed it in, both the hot pressing and the dipping. So I didn’t see all of it.

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It was the old chippy talking about it, the old boy Alan whatisname.

He used to say that they’d put it up to, I think it was 1 ton per square inch, the hydraulic pressure on these things, which was where the safety valve blew off anyway, and a chap would go back and look at it after it had been standing so long, and the pressure would have died slightly, and they put it up again. They’d put the pressure up two or three times to keep the pressure pretty high.

So they used just as much pressure as they could … it didn’t matter that it was a hundred tons per … whatever, they just let it go until the safety blew off on the hydraulic press?Yes. Yes. And they tried to keep it up to that for quite a while apparently. I know very often they’d be putting these things in in the morning, like, and they’d take them out the next morning.

But these plates were very hot and very heavy, and it took two men to put them down, and they had to be very careful.Getting everything square?

Not to move the sheets you know, underneath or else it was ruined you see.And who would do this, was it someone from the finishing room, or papermaker men?Yes, usually it was the …

Drier workers.

Drier workers and the men working the rolls.And what are the rolls?Well, the glazing rolls.That’s the machine where you feed the sheet through one side and somebody else puts a new piece of paper in and shoves it back in again?No, no, no!. That was in zinc plates. [sheets between zinc plates]Oh so they make a pack, and roll it. YesDid the machine go that way and then back again?Yes, yes.They used to roll it through and back, and usually turn it Turn it and go thy other way. But it was all done by hand, it was very [tedious]Yes I’ve seen those machines at Wookey HoleThat’s right. But it was a sheet of paper, and a sheet of zinc, a sheet. And I mean, the way they did it was, the girls that did it was like this… [she demonstrates]So a girl would load it up and then a man would run it through the press.That’s right, yes. And while it was being pressed, she’d be doing another lot, but eachActually there was usually two girls or women to one press, and one man.Yeah. There was two presses, and one man usually working them. But there was, sort of, the girls sort of had two books of … [zincs]Of zincs?Yeah, and the thing was, it was whether they’d have another plate in [or not]. The finisher would tell them. Whether the finish was high enough or if it was too high. He’d come and compare it.[pressure changed by the number of plates and thus sheets of paper in the pack that went through the rolls of the calendering press]Who’s the finisher?

In my day it was Mr Howard.OK and what were the jobs that he did as the finisher?

Well he did the drier workers … [was foreman of the dry workers]

Foreman

Foreman

The manager. He managed the women … you know.OK. So he would supervise them. But not the sizing?

13

No, no, somebody else was in sizing.

So once it came … once it was done…

He was in charge of the salle. All the salle, which was the sorters, the rolls …

And the rolls being what? Those machines we were just talking about.Yes

And the pressing

And what’s the difference between the rolls and the pressing?

Well they all got pressed. They used to put it in the presses and press it for so long, but that was before…

… Just a little interruption here. OK so what I’ve been curious about is this, after the paper was made, run through the rolls, then it was left to stand in standing presses for some amount of time before it was sold? Is that true, or is that not true? Or do you remember?Yes, it came out of the pressing …

Came up out of the presses and was sorted and was taken up to the stock room, unless it was an order that had to go right away.So if it didn’t have to go right away, they’d put it in the stock room.And sometimes stock was there for, oh, years.And stock would it be wrapped or would it be actually stuck in the standing presses?Yes, usually it was wrapped in reams, and was labelled.Who did the wrapping?

The finisher.Did you ever do wrapping?

Occasionally helped the finisher, yes, if he was busy he’d get one of the girls to … on the end of the bench. Or he had a boy, an apprentice, to do the wrapping.An apprentice finisher? Someone who was getting in line to be the supervisor of the finishing area.That’s right. A lad usually. And they came along and they would … carry it down through on trucks and go up in the little lift up to the stock room.[Note: There were not apprentice finishers. My question led her to say that’s right. I found later that usually an older papermaker, when no longer interested or able to make paper, if they had respect in the mill, would be moved to a manager position in the salle as the finisher.]And would it be stored in the standing presses or just wrapped up in paper and setting in piles? Do you remember?It was always. No presses there in the stock room at all. Sometimes it was in wooden, well mostly it was in wooden frames, you know, off the floor. But it was never put on the floor. Not that the floor was wet or anything, but they always had air.Underneath

Underneath it.How high would the stacks of reams be, can you remember?

My height.

And would they stack only the same size, like foolscap on foolscap

Yes, yes, yes. It was basically by makes, you know.What does ‘makes’ mean?

Um … what the …

A certain size? Or does it have anything to do with the content of the fibre that made the paper?What the watermark was.

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What the watermark was, was the makes. Whether it was for Spicer, or whichever …

Ok so, you could have a couple of foolscaps, but one would have a different watermark, they’d each have different watermarks, so they’d be called different makes. Yes.

The make had to do with the watermark.That’s right yes.What was always a mystery to me on this was, that Spicer’s foolscap, and Arthur Millbourn’s foolscap, and Basildon Bond’s foolscap, was all different sizes …

Can’t remember

They were different sizes

Half the names now is gone. Dozens … Waterlows

Oh, that was another one.

That was another make. They had, it was mostly legal papers for Waterlows, you know, the linen, pure linen. Er , tough …Hard sized paper? [I did not understand when I asked about sizing. They were talking about fiber.]

You know that you couldn’t push your thumb through if you tried. This was really tough stuff. But then there was …Velum substitute I think they called it …

Yeah. Velum substitute.They was split-ups, which were envelopes and writing paper. That was, always had the deckle edge on the split-ups so that there was always a rough edge around the fancy writing paper.So split-ups was another, what you call make? [split-ups were created on the mould by sewing on raised wires. These made it easy to tear the paper apart once it was dry.]

No, it was just … Makes were all the different names …

Interesting

They all had a watermark on it. The watermark was whoever wanted the paper. But they were difficult because when they were wet, i.e. coming out of the size machine, if the deckle edge was a little bit sharp, they would fall to pieces. But being split-ups of course, it didn’t matter so much because you just collected up the pieces. But when it came to drying, the finisher and the drier worker complained bitterly because these small pieces were more difficult to dry.Difficult to deal with.

That’s great yeah.I mean there was everything from ‘Elephant’ in the stock room. You know, ‘Elephant’ size paper. ‘Imperial’ was the next size down wasn’t it?I was going to say the mystery to me was how they got named. ‘Demy’ was a size which was obviously a derivation from ‘demi’ isn’t it?

Yeah. Right.And then there was ‘Double-demi’! Double half!

Like a whole!

Cap was always made [double] … they didn’t make Cap, it was always ‘Double-Cap’ which was two sheets.And was double-cap two sheets on a mould, or was the sheet actually double cap- size, (so it was …) Which one?Well it was both. Sometimes two sheets on the mould but sometimes ‘Double-cap’ is one big sheet.

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(Big sheet.) So you’d have two different sizes of ‘Double-Cap’ paper?

That’s right yes. Some was made for Cap and some was Double-Cap, you see. And medium sized and …Probably only perhaps a half-an-inch difference …

But there were all different you know.I could never. I tried often to work it out.

The legal papers were nearly all medium sized, but then the vatman made two sheets.

The legal papers mostly medium sized. [Between Demy and Royal in size, 18¼ x 23]Yes, yes. I said the vatman had two sheets, which was a big …

Right

… mould for two sheets.But the deckle cut it in half like

But the deckle cut it in half so there was two sheets.Right, I’ve seen that.Yeah.

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Side 1B

Peter - bold Tom - normal Pearl – italic Unintelligible / Uncertain

Yeah, that makes sense. [We are talking about giving a fake deckle edge to paper that had to be cut to a size that they did not have a mould and deckle for]

They guillotined the paper then they put it in a frame. The chippy made up a frame with wood and metal screws I believe, to put it in. And then they’d do the rasp, and rasp it up.

Is that how they do it?

To do the deckle edge.

I’ve seen that. So they did it just with a really coarse rasp.

That’s right yes.

Yes.

One of those for …

Shoemakers ones actually.

And did you ever see that being done Pearl, that rasping? ‘Cos I’ve seen a lot of that paper with the fake deckle edge and I wondered how it was created.I used to do some occasionally. I didn’t like to do it. It used to be almost anybody. They would put the labourer on that job.

It’s really hard work, do you mean?

Well it’s. I used to get fed up with it anyway. I always remember the guillotine. The foreman managed that, old Sam Aiston, if they cut the paper. And when they cut it, if it was out of square, he used to swear it was the guillotine wasn’t level on the floor.

Oh.

I used to point out it didn’t make a damn. It could stand on it’s flippin’ nose it wouldn’t alter … it’s how you put the damn thing. If they use the, you know. What did they used to call it? The fence (on one side). If you put the paper hard against the fence, it couldn’t avoid being square. It had to be right. They used to love to put it in the middle of the thing and not touch the fence, and then cut it off. And of course that’s all right but when you turn it round the other way

Then you’ve got the other angle so that …Then you’d get a lozenge shape. And they used to say it was because it wasn’t level on the floor.

...

(problem with tape)

...

Now how many were washers, how many were breakers, and how many were beaters?Um … The original, the hand made paper set up. Forget about this pulp business, that come after. The hand made paper set up there was one breaker, two washers, and three beaters. It used to go in the breaker first. Then they used to put bleach in to it, assuming it was a bleached load. Some of it didn’t

17

have to be bleached. They’d put the bleach in it and it would run down into the bleach tanks and stand for so long …

Run down into the bleach tanks?

Yes. Then they’d drain the bleach water off, and the pulp was taken back up, put in the washers.

How was it moved back up?

Put it in tubs, like a trolley on wheels, and a lift. There was a lift up the centre of the mill.

I see.

Hand lift. Or not a hand lift; a mechanical lift. But they used to hand load it into these things. And then it went into the washers, two washers, and was washed for so long, until. We used to test it with litmus paper, whether they’d got rid of the bleach or not. Then from the, course all the time, it isn’t in the breaker, it’s … the breaker’s breaking roughly but in the washer it’s still breaking shorter, beating shorter.*

The washers had blades on them?

Yes, just the same. [as the others]

And is there a bed-plate in a washer?

Yeah, and in the breaker.

And are the bed-plates exactly the same in all three machines or were they different?They were ¼ on the breaker, meaning ¼ teeth …

Further apart, or just flatter tops?

Well they were. Imagine saw-toothed shaped ridges going right across, slightly at an angle. So there was a scissor effect with the bars. I think the breakers had twelve of these over a 7 inch width. Washers would be about fourteen or fifteen, and a beater would be about twenty.

I see.That’s not …

That’s good enough. Did they have to replace those often?

Take them out and sharpen them.

Sharpen them?

Re-cut them, with a milling machine, that ran along and cut the grooves.

So this was a solid piece of bronze, that just had these things milled out of them? Or was it wood and metal?Oh it was a wooden block, with a bronze block set into it, with bolts coming up through the bottom and countersunk bolts holding it on.

So you could take the whole thing off?

You took the whole paper* block out and used to put that in the machine and mill it back and forth and undercut it.

And why would you sharpen it?

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Well when they would come down … and they’re getting blunt like. It wasn’t as much sharp as keep the grooves deep rather than the actual sharpness.

And what was important in having the grooves deep – do you know?

Well, to sort of grip the material and beat it.

I see.

As opposed to cutting it.

Had it been a flat plate, it [the pulp] would sort of just get swept under without [anything happening]…the front edge was the only thing would do it [the beating or cutting]…

Did the beaterman always say, “Hey, it needs to be fixed.” Or ,who would tell you, it needed it, when it needed to be fixed? Well the beaterman used to say it wanted cutting. And my department used to do the cutting.

Yeah but, so the beaterman, like Sam, would come and he’d say to the foreman, tell him that it needs to be fixed up, or something like that?Yes. He’d say that like number one is taking a long time.

Ah, so it was taking too long to beat the pulp?

That’s right yes. And they’d, usually the beaterman would take the thing out. But we would always put it back. To make sure it was level. If it was put in, and say there was a bit of pulp on the end, and it was cocked, then that would be no good.

But I can see that the problem would be if the blades get too dull and it takes too long to beat a batch and so it gets over-hydrated and then it falls off the mouldYes, this is what …

Before you said the pulp would fall off the mould … do you remember saying that and what did you mean by that, or not?Well, when they dipped and gave it a shake, a lump of it would slide, you know, almost like snow on a roof when a bit of it sloughs away.

So that, for them, that meant the pulp wasn’t beaten quite right?They used to call it wet.

Too wet.

Too wet, yeah.

And what happens when they have a whole batch of that? Did they just have to make paper slower, or did they get rid of it – do you remember?I think what they used to do basically was dump a drier one in it.

Into the stuff tank?

Yes. ‘Cos normally these tanks had agitators going all the time. They’d dump another lot in and …

Try to make it usable?

Rectify it, like that.

Do you ever remember them dumping a whole batch of pulp somewhere?

Yes, quite often they used to.

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What did they do with it all?

Put it in the river.

The pulp!

Yes! Now that’s no good …

Now when they were making paper or when they were making pulp.

Probably the paper, no, I don’t think any pulp ever went in. It was when they were making paper, if they had a bunch that was. I mean sometimes they’d get nylon in it, and that was, this would be out. [nylon would make the pulp unusable and unsellable.]

So a whole beater load would be, sort of, run down to the river?

Yes.

Oh I don’t think that would work today, would it! I think they’d complain about pollution.

I mean. I think a few of those went. Say in the first twelve months I was there, but after that.

That’s when they had to put in the effluent tank.

Was that the pits you say you built?

Yes, that was. Of course, there was always some fibres got out. We had vibrating filters taking the stuff out.

And would they ever take the pulp and sort of block it up … make these square blocks and take it to the dump or something.No, it was burned.

Oh it was burned!

Well actually, it did come out that there was firms that was taking block of stuff for, they found that if it was added to glass fibre in the fibre glass, resin, epoxy-resin business, the right pulp added tear strength to it. Yeah that’s right, ‘cos I think that glass fibre would stand terrific weights and pressures but not shock strains. But if the, if some of this pulp was added to it, this stuff out the vat house, well all the waste stuff they could collect, used to go in that. In fact, latterly they started making it for that.

You mean when they closed down paper making, when they were just making pulp, some of the pulp went for that purpose?Yes, it would be a sort of halfway house. They were making paper and making pulp for the glass-fibre industry. Not glass-fibre. Glass-fibre reinforced epoxy.

(jump in tape …)

In the thirties [it was not a problem] … it was only in the sixties that the nylon came about, you see.Man made fibre.

It was wool that had to be removed from the early times. … err cotton.And did you ever work in the rag house?

Well I filled in occasionally later on. But I never actually worked there. Not really worked there.And was that a worse job than the other ones you did?

Mmm, mmm, mmm.Worse than working taking paper off the rolls and stuff? Now why?

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Well it was dirty wasn’t it? When you think of rags. I mean it was. The French rags were disgusting!And did people get sick off them?

No! No, no. They went through something called a duster. All the rags were sort of tipped into something called a duster and …

Oh the magnet was …

Well that was after it was cut. What was the other machine called?

(jump in tape …)

63 pence. How do I get that? … How much is it?… that’s … that’s 12s 6d.

Oh! Ok. So that’s how much I assume you got when you were working there before you went off to be a housekeeper?Yes.And that compared to. Was that low pay, or was that high pay, or was that pretty average?

That was about average.And did that pay for everything? Was that rent, was that … Well I lived with my mum, so I had to pay her 10/- a week and I was expected to cloth myself and … I was left 2/6-, more-or-less. I don’t think you didn’t ever buy anything because you did, but the money those days. I mean a farm labourer earned 32/6d, which was £1 12/6, to keep a family on in those days. The labourers at the mill earned about 35s, and the papermakers I don’t know what they earned – not much over £2 at the beginning. So you see the wages were so very low, everywhere.Right

And young people … you can’t realize … you see … what people worked. I mean … sandals, plimsolls, canvas shoes, in Woolworths, you got a pair for 6d.

Petrol was one and tuppence a gallon

One pound … no one shilling and two pence

Which was fourteen pence. Now … it would be six pence now! A gallon.

Yeah

Farmers would… and you got two rabbits … for nine pence.

And you could sell the skins!

Well now, the thing is now if you want a rabbit, it’s pound-a-pound.(jump in tape …)

[Can you tell] some of the details of your job that would relate to hand papermaking, rather than machine paper making. That would be interesting. Is there anything that you can think of?Well, I suppose the biggest job was keeping the vats running. You know the machinery on the vats. You know a vat had the hog, which, of course, was the agitator in the vat, the knotter, which was a de-knotter in fact, a lifter, they called it, which was to bring some of the pulp from the vat back up through the knotter to keep it circulating. The bearings for these things were wooden bearings, lubricated by water, and their life was short. You had to continually replace them. We used to make them in the workshop. They would be made of beech. The blocks. Well the belts slipped so much they bearings to come together*

A little messy.

The moulds were a steady job as well.

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(15:52)

So did you do some of that too? Or did only the chippy, really, look after the mould repairs ...I think I used to do the bulk of it. Because it was nearly all wear. Wire on metal. You know where the moulds had a copper strip right around the edge?

Yeah,

Well these boys were snapping the deckle over the mould and used to cut this copper tape. And then the wire would start rising up. And then you’d have to go back and tack ’em back, and put a fresh piece of copper on in place.

What did you do when the holes got sort of worn out, and the tack wouldn’t hold? Just put in a bigger tack, or …

Well, plug it with a piece of deal. Put a piece of deal down the hole.

A piece of what?

A piece of, well a piece of wood, like a softwood, down in the hole and put it back in. [Deal is a variety of pine wood]

[Then put] another small tack in?Yes put the same type of tack in again.

I’ve looked for those little flat-headed tacks. Were you able to purchase those?

Yeah. I know there was some people we used to deal with for all that kind of stuff. All I can think is [the names of] metal workers in the country now. I’ll think of the name in a minute.

That’s alright. So. Did that take up a lot of your time? I mean, everyday were you working on the moulds? Do you think, or …Yes I think a good hour or so every day. Might be more. Occasionally like the laid wire would break. You’d have to pull the whole lot right out, through, and thread a new one back through in its place. And fasten it down, and sew it. Put a couple of stitches in, to hold it in place like. And they used to knock the watermarks off them, or pieces of ‘em. And we’d make a new piece and sew it in. A very tedious job that sewing. (Because you can’t, it isn’t like a straight.) You can’t just put the wire in and pull it through, because it cockles and breaks. You’ve got to pull it through, and hold with your [shows holding thumb in special manner] bring it through, like that sort of thing, until it’s down. And then hold it and come back again …

So that your thumb would be holding the thread and the needle would be moving at the same time …Keep it straight. ‘Cos if you let go it will cockle and the cockle will come through I hadn’t thought of that, so that’s what the trick is: holding the loose end with your thumb until it gets nice and tight.Yes, and then, of course. Latterly, the last set of moulds we had, that Aimes made for us, the watermarks were soldered on. And they used to supply the watermarks. They weren’t wire, like they used to be, the watermarks, they were hollow, almost like a u-shape. Electro-plate?But the ‘U’ would be full of solder. And to put them on the mould, like, you just wiped them, and put ‘em on, and warmed them up with the heat, that sort of thing. It was a lot easier to do that than sewing them on. I guess.

Yeah

But they didn’t seem to be so strong. They always seemed to be losing these, these watermarks.

Did it fall off?

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Whether it was the alum, that was always on with papermaking. Whether that used to attack the solder, I really don’t know.

Well the alum was in the sizing wasn’t it, not in the …

They used to put a bit of alum in, soap and alum, and all sorts, in the actual papermaking …

(Oh that’s right to make the …) That was in the beater, to make the paper a little harder, so when it was sized it wouldn’t just totally fall apart. [Make it] a little less waterleaf.The were a lot of things that went on that I wouldn’t know much about.Right …But alum was used in, I know, the size machines. These machines, they were steam heated. They had a 2” copper pipe used to go up one side and down. And another one round and up and back. And they was full of steam to keep the stuff heated. And the pipes went into, I suppose they were brass elbows. They were just like ordinary, you know, domestic piping. Now it’s mostly 15mm and that. You just slip them in and solder them. And these were soldered just the same as that. But there was steam inside like. And these angles used to gradually become like pottery. Almost as brittle. And they would fall to pieces. And this apparently was because of something in the size. There used to be awful stuff they put in that. What’s the stuff you use for preservatives?

Formaldehyde?

Yeah, that’s right, formaldehyde yeah. And one of the issues up at … I expressed the opinion that the common suppliers of these things without (?) glass, the zinc was being killed by it*. And even just sintered copper, and they fell to bits.

And a lot of these things used to burst and of course you used to destroy the paper and the thing and the size. I thought if they could get us some of these elbows in pure copper, then this maybe …

Did you not have many health problems in the mill?

Oh yes … you said health?

Health … health problems.

No, I don’t that …

How about you Pearl, do you remember people specifically having, like work related illnesses, like they talk about now, in the paper mill?

No…

Pretty interesting isn’t it? It must have been a cleaner thing …

In that village of Harbertonford, they had health problems in the woollen mill. Lots of tuberculosis

(Uh-huh.)

in that village. But they blamed the working conditions. But I think it was the, the family stuff.

The family stock. Because nobody ever moved out of Harbertonford?

No they intermarried …

And you kept on getting new stock in the mill paper!

Yes, yes. They intermarried, and they had a whole lot of, you know, whole families who sort of weren’t going away to far from home and dying there. I think basically it was, rathe,r the housing, if you know what I mean. Rather than the factory.I see

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That’s my personal opinion. Everybody said it was the woollen mill. That they worked at the woollen mill.Interesting. But not in Tuckenhay … that’s great!

No, no. There wasn’t.Did you socialize with the papermakers, or was it sort of …

Oh yes, yes

Oh yes. They used to pretend in the mill that they were a different class, but we used to pull them down a bit!

They all, everybody socialized. The village hall was built with people sort of, you know, working together. That was in the late twenties wasn’t it?So it was all a co-operative venture building the hall?

Yes, yes, yes. Not fast you know. We all joined in as well, but it was basically, you know the village people. All the papermaker,s they formed a band, you know, and used to have hops. You know sixpenny hops. Everybody paid sixpence …To get in.Yeah, to get in. And there was a local band. His [Tom’s] mother played a musical instrument, if she could get away from the pub that was. And his cousin played the piano. And it was something … it had constant … everybody sort of you know … it was much more…You were either in the band or the football team!

There was more community. Yeah.There’s no community life in the village now. Because the mills gone. But before that it was sort of … the chapel and the church and the village hall for the socials. There was always a Christmas concert, and the kids all performed and there was a dance, not every week but every couple of weeks you know, right on until the war this went on.Things really changed after the war?

Yeah. Well it went through the war really, they still carried on. But after the war things altered.Because so many men were lost, or …

No, I think it was because the cars came in. And people went, to, outside the village for their entertainment. There was no need to stay in the village with cars. And everybody went to the cinema, or the theatre or Paignton, or … Do you think that’s why people worked in the mill? Because they lived there so they didn’t want to walk an extra mile to work somewhere else?No, I think it wasbecause there was work there. There wasn’t anything else much, you see.Except for farm labour. Was papermaking, even if you were in an job like the finishing area, considered better than farm labour?Yeah. Slightly better paid. And you were in the dry. Farm labour you were out in the wet.Yeah.Didn’t matter what was. I mean there was no adequate, as there is now, rainwear.Yeah.I mean a good raincoat was beyond the cost of, the price that the average farm labourer could pay, so he had a sack on his shoulders to keep him dry.How did papermakers stay dry in the wet jobs?

Well it was wet under foot, but not overhead, was it.

Did they wear wooden clogs?

No, no. Hobnail boots. And I mean if they got wet coming to work they could take their wet coats up to the drying lofts, and hang ‘em up, so they had dry clothes to go home in, you know. (Where a paper …) Where a farm worker was wet all day long, and when he went home, he only had the fire to dry hi, sacks or old coats or whatever he was wearing.

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Didn’t you sort of think you were lucky to work in the sizing room, especially in the winter, when it was nice and warm?No, no.It’s human nature never to be satisfied!

It’s human nature never to be satisfied, yeah!

I liked babies, and the chance to go work and look after babies was more my idea of a good life.(How about some of your sisters …) Did you have family, did any of them work?

She worked yes.She would have worked her whole life, or …

Up till she married yeah.

(What was …) What did she do? Worked a lot of different jobs or one special job?

Yes, yes. She worked a variety of jobs like I did. Everybody moved on. Yes.How about your family, did other members of your family work in the mill?

Yes. Mother did for a while before she was married.

Before …

Two aunts worked there all their working lives, more or less.

And what did they do?

They were sorters. Both of them.

I had an uncle who worked in the stoker.

Do you have brothers and sisters …

Um no. No, I had a brother and sister, but then neither of them worked in the mill at all.

Neither your brother or sister did?

No. My brother went off to work as a builder. And my sister …

She was a cook.She went to be a cook didn’t she? Until she got married.

Once she got married, then what? She took care of home?

Yes.

That’s what happened. Your sisters both worked in the mill till …

Yes, yes, yes.So were there women that worked in the mill, rather than taking care of a home? (I guess …)Some did yes. My mum worked in the mill. Even during the depression, when most of them were on short time. My mum was a parter, which was parting the paper that went through the size machine before it was hung. It was put through two sheets at a time and this had to be parted to let the air go through it, and then it was hung. And she worked at that.And did she work eight-hour days?

No, it was slightly less than that.

There would be more than one parter?

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Oh yes there were four. Four. There was a team of four. (But she …) Well a couple of them that were on short time during the depression but …

Short time? What’s short time mean? I don’t know.

It was working three days a week, and on the dole for three days a week.

Ah.

Which meant they had to walk into Totnes.

To collect the money?

To collect the money.

Did you collect it daily or did you collect it…

No. Fridays, they collected their three days dole. The men as well, the papermakers and all, were all on short time…During the depression?

Three-day week. Then it went to three and four day weeks, when it got a bit better. But mother was lucky. Well – lucky! (Father still sort, of kept …) She was one who was always kept going, which was not always appreciated by some. But she was a good workwoman who never, sort of ever, mucked up any of the paper. So they kept on the better ones. Her and old Bessie, they never had, sort of rarely had, much of it [short time] They had the occasional time they were off, but mostly they didn’t.

What would be the big problems that they did when mucking up the work …

Well. Can you imagine sheets with sticky size … you know what size is like?

Yes, I’ve seen parting being done, so can just tell me what the problems that occur were.

If you, they, put a sheet down that had a slight wrinkle and would not smooth or tear it off, but if you put another sheet on top, there would be that wrinkle in, and that would mark the sheets top and bottom. If they were in a hurry, and they didn’t push out that slight wrinkle there, there’d be half a dozen sheets perhaps ruined with just one wrinkle. Not necessarily tear the paper because they learned very quickly not to tear the end off. But then again, if they were a bit clumsy with turning up the edge to part them they could make a line, on that.

If you, they, put a sheet down that had a slight wrinkle and they would not smooth it or toss it off as broke, and if you put another sheet on top, there would be that wrinkle in, and that would mark the sheets top and bottom. If they were in a hurry, and they didn’t push out that slight wrinkle, there’d be half a dozen sheets perhaps ruined with just one wrinkle. And they could tear the paper because it was soft and sticky, but they learned very quickly not to tear the end off. And then, if they were a bit clumsy with turning up the edge to part them, they could make a line, a crease that would muck up the sheet.

The turn up was like shuffling a deck of cards almost to sort of flip it around …

That’s right yes - flip it up. To separate the two sticky sheets and it had to go, you didn’t just pick it up and put it over. It had to swing so that the air got in.Uh-huh

You didn’t pick up one sheet at a time

What did you do?

You picked up two sheets. This one stuck together there and the next one. So you put those two together to swing over. The two that aren’t really stuck together?

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That’s right. That’s how they parted it.Oh I see. So you started by taking off one, and then you always get the two that aren’t stuck together.

That right yes. Yes.Now at this point, was it important to make sure the watermarks were all aligned? Do you …No. They didn’t seem to have anything about watermarks, to worry about really. Very often the watermark was only a small watermark, you know.But I heard someone else telling me it was really important to keep them always the same … always the same orientation.Oh yes. You didn’t turn the sheets over, you know. You couldn’t pick up one and flip it over.You had to keep them all the same.You’d keep them all as they were made. (sort of thing.) But nobody ever seemed too bother about that. It was just making sure it was in a tidy wad, as they called it. (So they wouldn’t inspect, no one inspected to make sure that they ...) How big was a wad?Oh it was like a ream really. It was measured, in the size house. There was a sort of little wooden measure that was, some were three inche, and if it was, like, thin paper perhaps, sort of, four-and-a-half inches. And this was the wad.Yeah. I remember the first time I heard that term. Harry Glanville was talking about it. But he called it a lump too. When he was making paper he called it a lump. But I always thought called it a post.Yes, well it was post. We always called it a post. And so many posts went into the press, like you know, and then it was all, sort of, dried on the machine. And then it was in a pile and went into the size house. And then it was measured, with this little [wooden measurer].So the terms were interchangeable, wad and lump and post?No, post was for the waterleaf paper you know, and the wads were after it was sized.So the waterleaf paper, after it came out of the drying loft, or before it went into the drying loft? For the term post?Well once it had been dried it was in a pile. So it was finished then.Let me just back up. Make sure I get everything clear. (Don’t get confused Peter!) Now I was thinking, the paper’s made, and it’s taken to the drying lofts, and its hung over lines, right (except for later when they got the machines). But, but when you were a child was it taken up and hung over lines or was it always just run through a cylinder drying machine.Ah. It was …Two different dryings.

… two different dryings. It was it came up from the vat house, the post, and was pressed. Just ordinary pressed.So once the layers had finished laying, it was big wet stack and was it a perfectly square stack at that point?Yeah, yeah. If it wasn’t, the layer was in trouble. It was put on a zinc plate and taken …And how much paper at one time? One ream? … I mean one post?One post at a time and then another post was put on top.[With zinc plates between.] And then the day’s making was taken up to the drying floor.You left out one thing.What do you think?Well after the layer laid it, it was pressed.

Oh yes, for the water to come out. In the vat house. OK. And how long … and that was a short time or a long time?Well just up to pressure.

So all the wet sheets all together?Yes.

And they just, sort of, press it?That’s right. Pressed it for up to a ton.

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No! That was when the felts were in it. Before the layer had it, come off of it!Yes but …No, no. He’s got …

I know but I think that it’s true that after they were all stuck together it was left a week or just … under light pressureThere was no more pressing in the vat house. OK.

It went upstairs to the press room they called it, which was next door to the drier. There it was pressed lightly.Right.And then it went into the drier.How long was it pressed lightly?I couldn’t tell you. Overnight.

I couldn’t tell you that. But it wasn’t pressed hard. They rolled the presses, with poles. Those were those screw presses right?Yes. The poles. They pushed the pole around.Oh you mean the (bars that fill the house and all the guys just push against the). [There was a pole with a rope attached to the screw press. Turning the pole would cause the press to turn down and apply pressure to the stack of paper in the press]Well just (?) against the walls and then you use the pole to remove (?)

The dry workers would press it. Yes. And it would stay there overnight. Then it would be put on a truck [cart] and taken into the drier.Which was a cylinder drier?Which was a cylinder drier.And who would feed the drier? Women or men?Women..Mostly?

Yeah. That was an unpleasant job. You took it two sheets at a time off the …And they weren’t stuck together too much?No, they were just wet, you know.But they’d sort of stick together?Yeah, but if you put through one it would over-dry Right.If you put through three it wouldn’t dry properly. Because the machine was set to dry two sheets of paper. And it was altered, the heat, for the thickness of the paper. If it was thick paper …It varied. The numbers going through varied. I mean some of that big elephant stuff, that went through single anyway.

Yes. But that usually went through the small single [cylinder dryer].

Now when these papers were fed through, was it four across, maybe, or something like that?Mmm. If it was cap it would be six across.OK, and when it came off the back side, were the two sheets stuck together and they had to be peeled apart?Yes. They were stuck together and they were. You didn’t peel them apart.You left them stuck together?Together. Then they went up. [to the salle]And was it important to make that pile very neat? Like, always or …Yeah. Because the edges get knocked out you see. See what I mean?OK. The corner would get folded over?

Yeah, yeah, yeah. You laid it as neat as possible.

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And did you have a little guide? Like a guide to feed it into or was all just done by eye?

All done by eye. The only occasion there was a guide was going on the rolls.

If it was, you know, a lot of small sheets going over there would be two people taking it out, but usually if it was two or three sheets one person did it. And they’d do it fast. And then whoever was in charge would come up with a truck and load it up and that was taken up to the salle. All dried paper was taken up to the salle. There it was, what they call jogged, which was basically, straightened up properly.If it wasn’t as straight as it should be.

That’s right yes.

So right now you’ve got a pile of papers, a days making maybe?

Yeah.

So a big huge pile.

So on a truck. And they’d take it up …

And if two sheets were stuck together, ‘cos when they got dried they sort of stuck? [Pearl ignored this and continued the story.]

They stood. In my time, they was always stood. To let the moisture come back in it, as they said.And how long would it stand?

Depends. I mean a rush job was about a month, you know.That’s a rush job, a month? And what’s not-a-rush job?

Oh … six months.Six months.Yes and it would stand in these piles and then …

And were they wrapped or were they not wrapped at all?

No, no. Left out open to the air.They were on a truck.Or on …

They’d take it off and put it on wooden frames.

On wooden frames.They sort of had little palettes underneath them?

That’s right. A bit off the ground. And

Then it would go into the size house.OK. So you never used the rope line to hang things over. Even when you were a child you didn’t see that happening.

Not when. Oh I did, but that was after it was sized.Oh I see. OK.That’s where the sized paper was …

OK well I’ll let you finish your story then.

And it would go through the sizing machine.

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And that’s not a good job, right?

Two sheets were still stuck together from the drying. It would go through the size machine like that. And made into wads. And then they would go out of the size house, down to the parting salle, where the ladies parted them. That’s when it was split up. Then it would go up to the loft and was hung on the ropes. There was a drying loft, a platform …There wasn’t ropes. They were wooden, with balls in slots.

Instead of pins. Yes I’ve seen those things.

Like little balls.Those things are nice!

Yeah, yeah. And they hung ‘em up there. Or, there was a flat loft where they would …

On muslin sheeting. Now did different kinds of paper get put in different kinds of driers? You mean like some paper would be …Yes. The big, elephant was usually a rough sort of sheet of paper, what we used to call that I don’t know, but that was usually dried flat in the flat loft , on big flat sheets, I think some of the …They was Hessian sheets.

Hessian sheets, that’s like …

You pushed the frame that was keeping the sheets right across, you know, laid all the sheets of paper on it, pushed that up to the top and pegged it and then filled the next one and pushed it up.

I think it was the very expensive paper, for artists, was dried like that.What would be put over the ropes, what paper?

Waterleafs, split-ups and all that sort of thing. If it was going to be rolled. You see normally the artists didn’t want their paper rolled.

You mean some paper was shipped out rolled? Most all? [I misunderstood here. By rolled she meant calendered]

Nearly all of it. But some of the artist’s paper only was lightly, sort of just flattened, more than [rolled] … no surface to it.Oh rolled in the rollers!Yeah, yeah. You see what I mean?I understand now - not shipped rolled, but rather put through the roller machine.That’s right yes. But that was very often. And then it came down from the rolls. And the girls did what they call jogged it, which was separated the sheets again, and where the back was* [Pearl demonstrates with a sheet of paper]Right.… like that. So that had to be pushed down like that. So that it would lay flat.

Right. Now that was, was that a hard job?

Not really. So it was pretty easy.Anybody could do that, yeah. Separating the sheets, jogging, putting it in piles. So that then it could be pressed a bit before it went to the rolls. You see sometimes the weight of the paper was enough to do it. But sometimes … they still had to do that. They’d put it in a standing press. How long would it stand there before it went?

Not very long. Just enough to get it down.So the place it spent a long time was just after the drier to really, to get it sort of stabilized.

To get it flat. And then they’d leave it standing for a while, before they rolled it. So it was settled down. And after the rolling, it was the finishing, that was.

30

Right. Did paper ever stand for less than six months? I mean could they do a rush job where they’d get it out on a week or two?

Not a week or two, but I’ve known them do a rush job in about a month. Somebody wanted a special order.This was something I was in on. We fitted a drying machine. An air-dryer, where paper was dried flat. (Listers made the thing.) This was trays went through, what was it, 360 trays in this thing, and they sort of went up, along the top, backwards and forwards eight times over 60 foot with the warm air going through it, and that would dry it.

The trays were like on a cookie sheet?What?The trays look like a cookie sheet?They were Hessian. Oh so they were trays out of cloth.Or wooden.I was thinking metal trays.That hook was on the side.Big chains went like down it, Renolds chains. [Renold chains have rollers in them]So it worked like … like a Ferris wheel kind of bringing the trays …

No, no. They went up over the top rollers, along the machine, down that set of rollers, back along the machine, dropping on to rails each time. Eight times backwards and forwards.

And with a heater underneath?

It was like a big radiator heat exchanger with a fan blowing air through it at varying speed.

Why did it matter if it moved, why didn’t it just sort of stay still and blow on it, you know?

Well this way you got it continuous, you see you were putting sheets in and taking them out.

Oh I see you’d put it in the top and they’d come out the bottom.

Actually you’d put them back in at the same level.

Now what’s the difference between … oh that would be, that would be if you didn’t want it … if you wanted it to have a rougher surface.Same as air drying. Same as a loft drying. To take the place of a loft drier.

For the sized sheets.Yeah. The sized sheets yeah. But, because. When we were starting this machine you could get the air temperature up to, um say, about 180 degrees Fahrenheit in this thing. And it used to be always the drying was a bottleneck in the mill. And the boss he’d got five vats going, and the dry workers used to have to come in weekends or they’d never dry the paper.

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Side 2A

Peter - bold Tom - normal Pearl – italic Unintelligible / Uncertain

[This continues from 1B talking about the drying machine]

And we’re talking about in the gelatine … after the gelatine size.

We’d got this Lister drier. It was a huge thing – 65’ long.

And made by? A company named Lister, is that right?

Yes, Lister of Dursley.

Dursley?

Yes, Dursley, Gloucestershire. Anyway, quite comic. The old papermaker was against this thing. They said ‘This is no good. Grandfather tried it, and it isn’t any good.’ Of course his grandfather never even saw it, but anyway. ‘It’ll be no good. It’ll ruin the paper.’ So we tried this machine out, set it up, got it going and got a couple of women there putting it [paper] in and taking it out. And this thing went like a crackerjack job. A week’s making of paper in less than two days. And we thought ‘This is the end of the bottleneck’. What was wrong with the paper? It seems all right.

What was wrong with the paper? It seems all right. (Laugh).And the next day. When we came in the next day, the old chap, the papermaker, old Sam Aiston, obviously full of joy says, ‘That paper’s no good. I’ve found out what the trouble is, what’s wrong with it.’ And apparently, in the hydraulic test of the paper, you know the test machine. Well this paper, normal is 160, don’t quote me as exact figures but we’ll say it was 160, and the stuff that came through the Lister drier was under 100.

So you could poke your finger right through it theoretically?Oh, no, no. … it was 100-pound pressure. But it was down, right down, and it wouldn’t do. Caused the boss a panic. ‘This machines no good’, the old papermaker were saying, ‘Told you so’.

Yeah, ‘Told you so’. I bet he did.

Anyway. I have to take a bit of kudos for this. Because I thought to myself, well what can the difference be? I mean one dried in the air, and the other one went through the machine. It dried quicker, well that might be the answer. And it suddenly struck me. In the size machines the temperature of the size never had to rise above 120 degrees, Fahrenheit see, or it would crack the size and it was no good. 'Course in this machine we were drying sized paper at 180 degrees.

Oh so it just …Well, wonder if this is cracking it, I wonder. So I said to the boss, who was panicking, ‘Look lets put it through the machine at under 120 degrees.’ Because this drier, you could adjust anything you wanted on it, which you never could in the loft. And we set it down to 115. 'Course we found then we had to slow the machine down. Then it didn’t do a week’s making in under two days; it took nearly three days to do it. But when they tested the hydraulic test, the paper was perfect. And it went fine, and was used from then on.

So you got production going just perfect, and then they closed the mill!Yeah. Well the hand made paper went out first. And then we dried pulp in that machine. Broke it up really. These big lumps of pulp, put like sagged and caught on each other and trays tied themselves in knots*

32

So when you made pulp at the mill, you shipped it out in dry lap form? Or dry sheet form?Some of it. And some of it went in, you know, damp. Wrapped in plastic.

I’ve bought it like that in bales.A lot of this pulp was put in these blocks and sent away moist. And it had to be down to, I think it was 20%, or something like that. We had a percentage, and we had a gadget we used to jab it in. But I thought if we put a wire mesh around this thing, and pressed it and all, when we took it out, could we cut it? Guillotine the block like? Course when they approached the people [turned out] they didn’t really want it in blocks. They didn’t really care what it was, as long as it was handleable. We had a box, poured the pulp in through a 3” pipe until it was up to level, [let it drain] spill it out and break it. And take it out. You’d got a big bolster, which you folded over and put all in a plastic bag.

So that’s how you sent it out?We sent it away and they were happy with that. So that’s how we did all that.

All that hard work you did it wasn’t necessary.No. But …

The stuff that went away dry, you called flock?Flock. Yes. And what we did was actually for a local firm at Newton Abbot made machinery for making cider. And they had a gadget in there that you put the apples in. and it goes through and you know you have to mash the apples up before you press it. They’d got this thing that was like a series of bars spinning round in a housing and it would smash the apples to pieces and shove them out sort of the thing. We thought we’d get one of these and we got them to try it and we found we could shove our bolsters in them slowly and it came out pretty well perfect flock. Actually it was inclined to the occasional lump. So what we did, we got two of these machines and put it through one, through the other, and when it come out the end it was just ready for drying.

Oh, that’s great.And then we used a vacuum blower. This thing actually blew it up to the first place. It dropped on to a conveyor. And into a blower drier that we got hold of that used to dry it by blowing it out of the…

You had a lot of equipment around!And at the end of that, it came out into the shoot, where a vacuum picked it up and took it into the packing room, where the pipe that came to the packing room had a Shirley wheel. Have you ever heard of a Shirley wheel?

No.Well it’s a. You imagine a pipe with a slot in it.

Yeah.And you put a wheel made of mesh in it. Suck your pulp along and turn your wheel. And the wheel takes all the pulp out, and the air goes on like and the pulp drops into the press underneath. And when the press pile got to a certain height, you’d press that lot, and put the bands round it, and you’ve got a bale of flock to go away like.

Put the bands round it, huh?We’d put metal bands round it.

That’s pretty amazing.But that was flock making, that wasn’t papermaking!

How do you process your rags? Do you buy it?(gap in tape)

… parlance there.

The what? Par …

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Parlance. The way you talk.

Oh, the way you talk.Half-stuff is the pulp that has been broken and bleached and has come back to be beaten. That’s half-stuff. It hasn’t been beaten.

Right.So you use the same?

That’s right. And flock would be the same except for dry?Well the flock would be half-stuff, but the half stuff is wet and the bleach hadn’t even been taken out of it. The flock would be pure, rather long, I suppose you’d call it pulp. But long … it was long … it hadn’t been beaten. It was always pure white, or sometimes it was coloured, with special colours.

I see.[Break in tape]That always used to make me laugh, because it was always put on as N-O-T.

And where was that written on? On the ream wrapper you mean?Well you if get adverts for it, you know. This was N-O-T. Not hot pressed.

Not hot pressed and O-T means?Well presumably ‘Hot pressed’.

Yeah, but where does the O come from?Well, hot without a ‘H’!

‘Ot!’ Ot!

Local parlance again!

I see! Papermaker’s spelling!Mind you, I used to pull the leg an awful lot about their spelling and that, and how they knew their trade. ‘Cos when they started on a scheme where there was clock, where they had to clock in and out when they broke down, they used to have to put down on there what the breakdown was, and they could never spell it. They used to spell deckle d-k-k-l. And there were a lot of other word I used to pull their leg about, saying they’re and ignorant lot of blighters, these papermakers. They ought to be educated!

(gap in tape)

RightUsed to come in by river, by boat.

OK we’re talking here about on page 4 trying to figure out where the stuff came in and she was saying that the boats … everything came in the quay. Rags came in by …Yes rags. Rags came in

(problem with tape)

I’m going to work this out this is ridiculous.(gap in tape)

(9:48)

What’s the difference between the estate and the terraces? So the estate people and terrace people, was there be a difference? Or is that something I made up?

34

Ah! You meant the Sharpham estate! At Ashprington.Is that what it’s called – Sharpham? S-h-a-r.Sharp-ham.

Oh S-h-a-r-p-h-a-m.Yes.

And what was the Sharpham estate?That was private estate, run by the local squire, who owned the village of Ashprington. And it took, well, a generation really, for them to really mix. The papermakers and the estate people to really mix.How many people lived in the estate. Lots, or just a few? Couple of families?Oh no, no. See they had big families didn’t they. There was ten houses around the gardens … about thirty houses.About thirty houses? Oh so it was quite a lot of people.Yeah it was quite a village you see.And the local squire built this whole estate to house relatives in or?Work people. Basically work people.And what did they work on, his farm? Was that …Yes, the estate had about five farms, then there was three or four big woods. There was woodsmen, there was gamekeepers, farm labourers working in the farm.What do woodsmen do? Cut wood? Is that it?Oh look after the woods. Plant new trees, cut the wood for the old [house.] I mean they burnt wood in the big house.Right. So somebody had to get that.Yes, yes. About three woodsmen, a gamekeeper, and under-gamekeeper, err, and the women worked in the house, housemaids. They had a butler. They had about five gardeners.The house had 52 windows and 365 panes, I would thin.

And they never, sort of, mixed.

Not really, no.

I mean the local women couldn’t quite approve of the papermakers wives who came down and. They’d go to the public house you see, and the local women never went near a pub …Now by local women you mean the estate people?Yeah. They never went to a pub. They went to church on Sunday, and worked all the week.So the estate people, had they been there longer than the papermakers?Yep, yep.Longer than, say, the Eden family?Yep, yep. They all been …Generations and generations?They didn’t mix no.Interesting.When they built Sharpham, he, the man who * father died didn’t he?

No, but I’m talking about the original builder. Long time ago.

He built Sharpham with prize money from one of the naval sort of …He was a privateer.A privateer, yeah.In the 18th … 15th … what century?

About 1700 or something like that.I see.He bought the estate and built the house.

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It was about the same time Sir Walter Raleigh built his joint the other side of the river.

.. in all this history. But the estate people were very sort of … how do you put it … introvert people.Ok. Now the terrace people …Ah, the Tuckenhay people lived in the … you know … the terrace, the papermakers and all this.The terrace. Why do they call it the terrace, just because the houses are on a hillside?No. A long terrace of houses.One long row of houses.Built the same time the mill was rebuilt. [by Symons 1890s]

And those are …Workman’s.

… are they below the bungalow where Cyril and Joyce live now?Yes, that terrace along there. But that was, they. The papermakers, they had concerts, they had been to London, they went to the pub. So they were much more worldly socialized people, huh?Yeah. And they didn’t mix.Seen more of the world.And they didn’t mix really until, how do I put it, father-in-law married mother-in-law, you know. The young people intermarried and then the two communities really mixed. Apart from that they only sort mixed at church, because all the church people went to church.So this note says basically that they started mixing when the clubhouse was built because they’d come to the concerts there some or …Well they would occasionally, but not a lot. They didn’t really, how did it …The trouble was basically it belonged to the mill.

Yeah, yeah. But when the parish hall, when they built the parish hall, which has now gone, then they started to mix. The people from the estate started going. The younger people going to dances and things there. That’s when it started to really gel in the, lets say, 20s.Late 20s.

Yes late 20s.So you were pretty young then.Yes, yes.And then after that, before the war, was pretty much everybody pretty mixed up, I mean pretty mixed socially together by that time.Yeah, yeah. You see the daughter of the squire ran the Girl Guides.Ran the … say that again.The Girl Guides. You know?No, I don’t know what Girl Guides are.Boy Scouts?

Oh Boy Scouts OK I know, Girl Guides.Boy Scouts. The equivalent of … Baden-Powell, you know, started the Boy Scouts. OK, got it now.Well she ran the local group and so she pulled in the children from the papermakers. Those children and the estate children all mixed.I see yes.And this had a great sort of mixing thing as well.Yeah, yeah. And probably the war effort sort of bought everybody together in a way.Yeah, yeah. Well of course, then the estate was sold.Oh so it was …He died, the old squire. His nephew had no sons, so it was the end.And did all the people buy their own houses or did they all have to move out?They could do. No, they were offered the houses for about £100 each and things like this. Ridiculously low.Did a lot of the people buy their houses?Most of them did.

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But how did that change the nature of the estate. I mean The estate was sold. The farms were sold off.Oh so they didn’t have any work? I mean not the same sort of work?No.Is that why it changed, because they weren’t all working for the same guy?That’s right yes.Did they have quite a social …

[Break]

So there were two terraces? There was the official terrace, which was right below the bungalow, and there was another …Yeah. That was Orchard Terrace. And then there was Bridge Terrace the other side. Well that had five papermakers living there didn’t it? Which belonged to the local farmer.The terrace did.Yes, the other terrace did. They were rented by the papermakers. And then the odd houses in the rest of the village were the local farmers.You worked right up till it closed and went into receivership?In fact, I stayed on for about a year breaking up the machinery and that.

You worked for the receivers for a couple of years, didn’t you? I can’t remember how long it was.

Right before it closed, who was working there? There was Cyril working there? Who else then?Yes. It was 80 working there when it closed.

There was 80 people working there when it closed? Ah, so those women … there was all the women that worked in the rag department.Yeah, they were still working there.But they just didn’t need the finishers, that’s all but there’s …No. No, the paper end was gone. But … yes.

See the beater room had expanded from one large breaker / beater and six small ones to fourteen large ones plus the six small ones, like you know.

Wow, you had a lot of equipment moving around didn’t you. That must have been an immense expense.

[Break] 19.00

So the boilers were for boiling the rags then, right, and it would get big …No!No, they was for generating steam to boil the rag. This was a big Lancashire boiler that generated steam at about 100 lbs / sq. in. And they used to steam this. There were four rag boilers, heated by steam injection.

And who would do this kind of work?The labourers.

The labourers were the ones to fill these …

So the labourers, (weren’t really) were they part of the papermaking staff? I mean were they part of the mill staff?Yeah, yeah.The … I mean about the rag boiling business. When they were making paper, there was only one rag boiler then. And they only used to use it once a week. It used to boil such a lot of rag.

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Before you started making pulp, did you ever buy pulp already made? Or did you make all your pulp?Buyed it, for some.

That was only for the cheaper paperBut you didn’t produce volume of pulp so you didn’t need to do all the boiling?I mean three tons of paper in a week was a good week when we were making paper.

Three tons is a lot!Oh it is, but not if you’ve got a big, a mill behind you. I mean we used to do about 120 tons of pulp [a year].

OK, so anyway in those boilers you have to chip off the lime. And then it says [the last interview] later you treat it, you chemically treat it with something, I couldn’t tell what the word was?

Oak block* [this is still unintelligible. Phosphates?]

With hammers going you know.Did anyone in your family have to do that sort of work, or friends of yours when you were a kid?Dad used to do it at one time, but as he got older he didn’t.(Do you remember the kids you used to play with … or.) When you were working at the mill, did they used to talk about how bad the jobs they had to do were? No ... I don’t think so. The shut happened and …there was no hot water. So they all came home … black.Covered in soot.

I mean normally if anybody got dirty there was hot water so they could go into a tub and have a bath, but not when the shut was, when they really needed it there was no hot water then …The shut means when everything shut down to do all the cleaning?That’s right yes.How often would that happen?Every August.A fortnight. *

So that means twelve … or two weeks.Yes two whole weeks.

Everyone else would be on holiday.The labourers used to stay and do this …

They had a holiday later. Either earlier or later.I see.Not all in a bunch like, you know. But the papermakers …

But all the women and the papermakers and that, all had two weeks holiday.Actually, when I think about it, when I started there, they only had a weeks holiday. So the papermakers had a weeks holiday and then the second week of the shut fortnight they used to come and help. ‘Cos they used to be very annoyed. ‘Cos they used to keep dirty jobs for them!

So they‘d say you saved all the dirty jobs for them!You know, shove ‘em up the cylinder of a gas engine to get the carbon out, and things like that!

Say that again, I didn’t … I didn’t understand it.Stick ‘em up the cylinder of a gas engine.

Oh stick ‘em up the cylinder of a gas engine. You see I’m getting smarter!Like the washing jobs you know. But it was lime wash, not you know … Uh, huh.Not distemper.

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… not emulsion paint.

And so lime wash smells bad when you’re doing it, is that it?Well if you get it, a splash in your eye or something, you know, lime hurts.

Yeah it burns.Yeah. So that’s what they gave them to do!

… keep a gas engine.

You were just saying that again. It just that Harrison seemed to, you know, only sell perfect paper …Yeah.

And so, this is on page 12, where we were talking about ‘Is there a bad beaterman?’ Well you only have … how good a beaterman when you’re thinking about?Well Johnny Stevens … he came …Reel me names out … it doesn’t really matter. So you had, how many beatermen? Do you think?I think it was two …

Three. And then there was …The third one came in. And they used to have a labourer to help them …

Oh, they always had a labourer to help, yes. After all, they had to go up to the end of the mill leat, up to the mill-pond, to turn on the water. The beaterman didn’t really want to do that, but they had to have somebody to go up to turn on the water to ...[have power]Open the gate?Yes open the gate.

This was because of course they were the biggest users of power, and therefore they controlled the power, which was basically a water turbine.

Right.I mean the gas turbine was the thing. But if there was enough water, they used to cut the turbine out. And then they had to completely control it like that. But they used to love to keep the gas engine in. ‘Cos if the turbine ran away, the gas used to hold back like, and you could control it without it bothering you too much. But if they were running on water, the beaterman had to watch his gear speed didn’t go too high or too low, and if it did, he had to turn off a few notches on the turbine, which would flood the leat from the top, if it didn’t shut off.

It would flood the way?Because they didn’t open it up much

And was that manually done or?Yes. A big screw.

So they’d send the labourer up to do that?That’s right yes.Yes. They say ‘Go up and put two screws on’ you know.

Did they ever flood? [Tom ignored this question]If he’d taken it off and he’d have to go back and put four on!

You’d taken it off?Taken it off instead of putting it on. He’d open the gate instead of … So did they … so that’s one place where the beater people caused trouble!

39

Yeah.So would one person, always, their batches of pulp always come out better than somebody else’s?Well you heard sometimes … one of the papermakers was a pal of mine, Jimmy Hinkston, he was interested in radio and that, same as I was at the time …

25.00

Jimmy?Hinkston, he was called.

H-i-n-k-s-t-o-n? Yeah he was a vatman

And he was interested in radio too?So we used to go and hob-nob a bit and he used to say,

(Used to hob-nob?That’s the word!)‘I know who let down that last beaterful of pulp’ ‘Who’s that?’ ‘That was Len Cox’ ‘How do you know?’

(I know who …)‘The way his paper makes up’

Really? So they could sort of know … so some people do make better batches consistently than others?Oh yes

YesThey used to know the difference.Um, Sam. By … you know, I mean it’s only hearsay, in my case, but Sam was always considered to be the good man above the other two. If Sam was on, he wouldn’t let anything down that was [not ready] Some, they’d come along and say, ‘Come on, come, on we’re waiting.’ But Sam would say, ‘Well it’s not ready.’

Uh-huh.They couldn’t hustle Sam into letting something down that wasn’t quite right.Now why would the papermakers, the vat people, want their (paper sooner … or their) pulp sooner?They wouldn’t! It would be the foreman!Oh!They would be quite happy to sit and wait!I was thinking that might be the case!Yes, it would be the foreman, or the manager, or whatever he called himself, who would be hustling, not the vatman.Jimmy Hinkston would always say, you know, ‘You know if Sam lets it down they’ll be no trouble at all like. But if Len lets it down, then watch it. Sometimes it’s a good one, sometimes it’s a bad one.’

Sometimes it’s a good one, sometimes it’s a bad one.

yeah

Well I’m working right along. We’ll find it out. Then if … what else … So Sam, no wait. Did he complain about, or talk about, anything else? Any other good stories that he told you that you remember?Um …

Yeah, they’ll come out.

[break?]

40

For quite a while he was with Cyril. He was one of Cyril’s …In his team?Mmm. Yes.What do you call a team? (I mean because.) I guess a different set of vatman, coucher and layer work together, right?You just call them a vat.

One vat?By the number. You know.So like …Number three vat.

Number three.And so Cyril, and Jimmy, and someone else were number?They were number three for a long time.

And what was … who was the other person in their vat crew?I think it was Ron?[Eden]Ron?

No, no, cos he was vat …No it was Ayresie wasn’t it. Cyril, Jimmy, and Ayresie was number three.

How do you say Ayresie?That was his surname. I can’t think what his Christian name was.

A-y-r-s-i-e? A-y-r-s-e?Something like that.Anyway, so they were a team. And did they have an upper end boy sometimes? When they needed their boy.They didn’t have a boy one very often, but the boys used to go around. Like, if they were making a small sheet, they didn’t consider they needed a boy. Cos he was supposed to help the layer pick the dry sheet up off the felts. But then

The coucher, wasn’t it.The coucher sorry. But, then if they were making a large sheet, they considered they needed a boy to help because the …

The felt … might flip the felt [so it would hit and damage the sheet below].Did you ever remember any of your friends that worked as (those kind of boys) Endboys?No.(So nobody you really knew got.) Who got that kind of job?The apprentices started with this sort of job …So I guess some of your friends must have been doing that job?To start with, they mostly all did I think. This was the point. They came in, you know, in the first year, or s,o of their apprenticeship and they did all the odd jobs, like …In later years we had a couple of kids from Dr Barnardo’s, didn’t we.

A couple of kids from where?Dr Barnardo’s home. That’s an orphanage.

Oh, orphan kids?That’s right yes. But the, I suppose. Everyone started being these end boys. I mean they had to clean up when the vatman finished. You know, clean up the …So they had the rotten job of the whole thing didn’t they?

41

Always the lads that started, yes. They had to clean up. See if the knotter, I mean if the knotter was, you know, clogged up you know with threads and that. They were expected to pick it out, if it [the knotter] wasn’t bad enough to go out and be done [fixed] properly.Yeah there were people …

The lads used to have to go out …There was a lot of witch-doctory about, I mean, the knotters. I mean. You know what a knotter is?

YesBut they. Each vat has got two knotters. And they used to use one for fine papers and one for coarse papers, you see. Well I looked at them and thought ‘Well, I don’t know.’ So I measured them with a feeler gauge …

You looked at what?I looked at the knotters …

Oh, yes, yes.And measured the slot with a feeler gauge. And they had a little bit of wear in places, but they were all fifteen-thou. Fifteen-thousandths of an inch.

Right.So I ask, ‘What’s the difference between these knotters?’ ‘Oh, one’s finer than the other’. ‘No they’re not, they’re both 15 thou.’ ‘Oh no, one’s finer. Your bloody tools aren’t , you’ve not got an accurate enough measurement for papermaking’, ‘Get off, not accurate enough. They can measure a thousandth of an inch. Not worthy of paper!’ Anyway on closer examination I found stamped in the side of these knotters: ‘Cut Number 3’. And they were all ‘Cut Number 3’!

And so they were (doing …) using different knotters for different jobs, but they were all the same!For the pure hell of it! The point was, it was another racket you see. They used to furnish the vat up, get ready to go, and then, ‘The knotters got to be changed’. Well, I used to have to recruit the stoker to come in with me to change these knotters. Cos they were heavy …

Oh, so you used to get the stoker to help you lift them? Yeah, it weighed about four and half hundredweight these things …

How much is a hundredweight?A hundred and twelve pounds.

Ok! They were pretty heavy.Well they were bronze things. And what were they, six-foot by three-foot by nine inches deep. And the plates were nearly two inches thick. They’d got these six foot slots in them. But you know, it used to take a bit of work, you used to have to sort of walk them out, and then get another one back in. And then you used to have to balance them. Get them to go like that instead of like this. [showing with his hands]

To balance them.And then they used to go again, like.

And they’d get … And they’d be sitting down and watching. They wouldn’t help! ‘Oh no, tisn’t a papermaker’s job to help with the bloody knotter.’ But after the big row like, when they lost it, they had to change the things themselves. I don’t think they changed them after that!

It isn’t the papermakers job to help with the bloody knotter, yeah![laughter]You’re not supposed to swear Tom! [this is unclear and may not be what she said]

42

Really! So, tell me the story (again, cos I want to make …) the one that you told just right before that. Cos the recorder wasn’t going, I don’t think. So they used to call you, just tell me the story …About the knotter? It consists of sticking a thin blade through each slot. [To clear them out.] In line with the stick …

Right.I mean, and I be working along. It wasn’t much fun. And they’d be sitting there watching you. I mean there’s four or five blokes, sitting watching you while you’re doing this blooming job. Oh, and there was one other thing to that, as well, to add to that. The spindle that came through the vat, that drove the hog, the agitator at the bottom; someone in the dim, dark past ordained that a piece of felt had to be wrapped around that spindle and tied with papermaker’s tape …

(No wait, that’s somebody … had) A piece of felt, wrapped around what?Around the spindle.

Ok. Around the spindle, Ok.Where it came out to the floor.

Now what’s papermaker’s tape?It was a linen tape that they used to tie the paper up with. Nice flat tape. But this had to be bound with linen tape and then tied on. Now this was supposed to stop the spindle from forming knots in the paper, like. That was the story.

34.30

Inside the vat?Inside the vat. Under the water. But only the engineer was allowed to do this flippin’ job, like. I’d be up the mill-pond doing something to the leat, and a boy comes trotting up saying, ‘So-and-so wants the flippin’ spindle wrapped’. You’d go down there. Four or five blokes had been sitting there been waiting for half an hour for you to come down and wrap this bloomin’ spindle. That game ended too. They had to do their own spindle, their own picking, and change their own knotters. When the time come. They didn’t like it a lot, but they did it. I don’t think it did it. I don’t think that bit of tape round the spindle didn’t get put on any more. Shouldn’t have got any knots in the paper, well they might have got one or two but they always did anyway. Cos, I couldn’t see that a piece of tape, a piece of tape and felt with it, was any less liable to make a knot than a plain joint!

I can see them just sending that little boy up to get you, while they’re sitting around getting [paid for down time. I cant remember what they called down time.]I mean, it wasn’t always like that. But it could be. I mean one time I was up at the chimney. I was up at the top of the hill. Doing a man-hole cover up there.

Doing what?Man-hole cover. The man-hole cover.

Oh. Ok.It was leaking. I was putting cement on …

Oh you were fixing the man-hole cover.… and this boy comes up, you know and says, ‘Number 3 vat wants their spindle being done …’

Was one vat worse than the other? Was (number …) somebody always calling you, more than …’No. Actually I picked number 3, but probably they was the ones that called me least actually.

Yes, yes, yes.You know, it was some number or other.

Were there some of the guys that (were just … sort of) everybody knew were lazier than other guys?Really cussed yes. Jack Perrin for instance. He was a …

43

Every time he could call someone in to clean up a knotter he would?

He used to, say. He would break his mould. You know, make it ragged and cut his finger on it. And he’d call out, ‘Look what your mould’s done to me!’ ‘My flippin’ mould! The mould is yours. You big fat so-and-so!’

The mould is yours, you big fat [laughter]. Yeah.Speaking about, like, one of these, for instances, like, at the end of a shut, and they just started up, you know.

The end of a what?The end of a shut.

Oh, the end of a shut. [the annual fortnight cleaning]. Right Ok.They all started up. The vat house did. All cleaned the vat up. They got everything ready and waiting. And down comes the pulp. And they send the boy to look for me, because none of the spindles are wrapped. And there’s fourteen of them sitting there!

None of the spindles wrapped so they’d all waited, watching you!And this particular time I come in and said to them, ‘You’re a lousy, lazy, load of so-and-so’s! All of you. And if you don’t like it, you’ll see what you can do about it!’ And so, one of them got up, you know, and I thought, ‘So you want a fight about that!”*

You want to fight about it! So they just sat around huh?Yeah, yeah. I mean. They did. I think they actually killed their own trade in the end. Because you know.

That’s what you said here [in the last interview] and I thought that was pretty interesting yeah. Pearl, do you remember any other travelling papermakers coming to stay? In Tuckenhay? Or do you?Yes, I can remember …I don’t think there was any after the war.

No, when you were children.Yes, the Lovelands, they had no children, and they had a spare room. And they used to occasionally stay with the Lovelands, I can remember. They didn’t. But, it was. What did they call them, when they’d finished their time somewhere else?If they couldn’t absorb them, [where they apprenticed] they used to go off, didn’t they?What did they call them? The card...Improvers or … I don’t know what the name, I’ve forgotten what the …They got the name of journeymen in the end.

Yeah. Do you think it was journeyman because they travelled around?Yeah, I think they’d come and do, perhaps six months or so, and then move on to a different mill to get a different experience. I think it was ‘improvers’.

Improvers I think they call them. [Improvers is the term to describe someone between being an apprentice and a journeyman. The length of time as an improver was set by the union and varied situation to situation]Improvers? When they were wandering around? Cos they’d certainly get experience in all the different mills, learn some things from here and there.Yes I think so. I’m sure it was after they’d done their apprenticeship at one mill, you know they sort of moved on.You know I’ve got an idea who that is, you know, thinking about it.

[Break in taping] 38.40

Who was [indistince…Nelson Wheedon?].

44

Well he was a vatman. He was at one time or another.

He used to work at Smiths, didn’t he *** at Smiths?I’m not sure he didn’t die before the war didn’t he, or during the war.

So did … he was some travelling man that came and sort of stayed.No he was her. I mean as far as I know he was always here. He was a permanent member of the mill.

Uh-huh.I lived in the pub, you know, the Watermans Arms. My mother ran it. Nelson used to come along. He used to sing a song ‘I don’t want no pictures on the wall, give me the value in the mug’! The older papermakers seemed, you know, a real drinking gang, like. You know heavy drinkers. Nelson Wheedon. Frank Davis …

Sid Smith.Sid Smith!

Once a week Sidney was.Was that once a week … drunk?Yes. More or less.He used to go and put his feet in and it used to take him right up to his neck.

Wait, wait, wait. Put his feet in what?It was beer his I think. He used to get real, you know …

But he was a lovely man …The story was he wanted to dampen his feet.

Wait, what’s the story?His story. His story was that he wanted to dampen his feet in the beer …

Oh, in the beater?Beer. Beer.

Beer. Oh, Ok.At the pub. Just a little drop he was going to have. But it used to come up right to his neck*. And he couldn’t walk home like.

Oh so that’s how he would say he would drink it. He would say I just wanted to get a little feel down in my feet.That’s it.

He was a lovely man. He always used to get ‘singing drunk’.Who was the Ashprington bloke who always used to …

He used to always, by the end of the evening, have a sing-song didn’t he?Always singing yes.

He was never a fighting man, he was a …That’s nice!… a singing man. He was always lovely company. If he was drunk he was never obnoxious. He was lovely.Who was the Ashprington bloke who was such a way on his (?)

May.May. That’s right. Bob May. He was another one wasn’t he. He used to. My old grandmother used to live at Ashprington, used to come down and spend a lot of her time down at the Watermans Arms. He used to walk up with her in the evening. When she went home, and she used to say ‘Just a mo, I’ll just see if Bob’s alright.’ And she’d go there, and he’d be sound asleep behind the hedge.

45

She know to find him hiding behind the hedge?She could never go by there without making sure he was alright!

Boyce. Billy Boyce. And his wife was, well, a managing lady. And, he was given sixpence to go out with, to have a drink and to buy his tobacco, like, you know. Well sixpenc,e even in those days, you didn’t buy an awful lot of, um, beer and ‘backy for that.He used to always sawing something. Old Billy, they always used to call him, they did, to saw a stick for somebody. For to go on the fire.

Wait. I don’t understand that at all.Saw a log, you know. For the fire.

OkAnd his wife used to want some wood sawing. So he had this saw, and it used to take him all day nearly, nearly all Sunday, to saw through this log. So he said to my father one day, ‘I wish you’d sharpen my saw for me’. ‘Well bring it down. I’ll sharpen it’. Father was a handy bloke. Well he bought this saw down, and I’ve never seen a saw like it …

[Break in tape] 42.21

… me about Walter Godwin. You said that he rinsed the felts from the vat. What job did he do?

[Break in tape] 42.21

Does that make any sense? I don’t know what I missed. Pearl, you were telling me how they enjoyed, they liked, rinsing the felts because … They washed the felts after they finished their days work. They worked perhaps an hour, perhaps less, perhaps more. But they were paid piecework. So this was extra for the ladies, and they were quite happy to do this, because money was short and this was sort of an extra perk, the felt-washing.Now, Fred … Jack … Fred Lynn was in charge of …Fred Lynn. One of the …So would he choose who got to do it?Oh no. No.Did they rotate the job?Well …Fred Lynn was more or less in charge of the felt-washing. See, they told him what wanted washing, and what didn’t want washing, and that sort of thing. And then he merely recruited these women saying ‘Anybody for the felt-washing?’ ‘Yeah me, me, me!’

Oh I see. And would boys be able to do it? Or was it only a men’s job? or …Basically …

Any premises?No, no, mens.Basically men. Because. They could reach ‘em out and that. They could reach and splash ‘em down on this …

Hard work. I don’t think the boys would have. Is felt-rinsing different from felt-washing? Are they two different jobs or are they the same?Well I would say different, because when they used to wash ‘em they used to put them in hot water with ammonia, and wash them, and then they…

They rinsed them after...they rinsed them after. It was part of the same job really. Cos they’d come out of the wash, into the rinsing bay, and the bloke stands over wash stand and rinsed …

The what stand?A wash-stand

46

Oh a wash-stand.It’s like a, trough to go over. It’s like a trough. Like so wide, made of concrete. And the water comes in at the end, and runs through between your legs, and away. So that you can do this with the felt, [shows waving motion] you know. And rinse it, and then pass it on, like.

So would they rinse felts after a day’s work, and wash them every once in a while. Or would they wash and rinse them at the same time?They would wash and rinse them at the same time. But, its, sometimes a post of felts would go two days. I think it would go sometimes three days. It just depends on what sort of paper [was being made.] They’d decided whether they wanted washing or not, and tell Fred Lynn, and he would arrange to get ‘em washed like, you know.

So is it possible they would go all three days without being washed, if they were making the same sort, and at the end of those three days ...Yes, providing the …

Sometimes they get sort of sticky.Yes.With extra little fibres all round?Yeah. Yeah. So then they’d need to be, they’d be, washed and rinsed? Or would they just rinse them sometimes? Do you know?I think they were always washed.I think they would always wash them. They used to, they had this big tub that they boiled them in, steam injected. They used to heat it up and put ammonia in. And very often Fred would go up and have the felts in the washing tub before knocking-off time.

Would there be only one size at a time in the washer? How big was it? Or would they have to sort the felts out by size after they were done?Oh there would only be one different sort at a time. Like. … And they’d rinse ‘em and …

They’d only be one post at a time, basically. They’d do one post at a time.Yes. And they. Cos then they throw them, load them, on a truck, and then they’ve got to take ‘em down and press them. Take them back to the vat house and press them, and put them to where they’re ready for the next morning

I remember Cyril saying they would ask for new felts, but they wouldn’t always get ‘em when they wanted em. No. Why was that?Well when the felts got worn they used to replace them. So many of them like. They never used to replace a complete post, or rarely.

Could they make paper faster with new felts or something? Why would they want new felts?Well they always said they handled better.And when they got old, it got a bit sort of, well felted. You know the felt was, felted. And they were difficult to, you know, handle. Harder to pitch?Yes. A new felt was soft and it was easy to pitch.Really supple?Supple. When they got, well felted is the answer, you know [they got stiff] …Oh I see, so they’d want it cos they could work faster but the guy would

47

Side 2BPeter - bold Tom - normal Pearl – italic Unintelligible / Uncertain

[Speaking about a vat man loosing his shake]

(So how did he,) How did he work it out in the team then, if that happened - I mean if they were changing out and stuff. He just wouldn’t go to the vat? (he’d change with the)They used to say they’d lost their shake when they were fed up with being a vat man, I think!

And then they could go to some other job?Well I’m a bit puzzled what the shake is really. ‘Cos I used to make paper occasionally. Not when they was there, ‘cos they’d say you’ve got to have seven years apprenticeship before you made a sheet of paper. But the chippy and I used to go and make half a dozen sheets when we changed the bearings, like on the weekends, Saturdays, when there’d be no papermakers there. And I used to put them in [with the papermaker’s sheets], and they used to go through, and I never heard of them being wrong like! But if you made them, they used to say ‘Oh they’re too thick one end,’ you know, and tear it up, that sort of thing!

I mean I’m not being funny, There is an art to it. Oh yes.I mean he doesn’t agree with me, but I consider there is an art to getting the sheet exactly … I mean you’d stand all day and make paper of a certain weight, you know.Oh definitely there’s a skill. I know because I haven’t completely achieved a level of mastery all the time!I mean you can think you make perfect sheets all day. But when you come to weigh them, there is a big difference in the weight of one sheet, one sheet will be thin, and the other will be thick. And, you know.I think, this whole making, the skill was in setting the sluice so that when the pulp that’s coming in the two knotters (well of course there may not be a knotter.) But I mean, you got pulp coming in to the knotter from your chest, you’ve got pulp circulating. But [it seems] the weight of your paper varies by how much pulp is coming in, and the time you take forming your sheets out of it.

So the weight of the paper is controlled by that?The weight and the thickness. And the thickness of the paper is governed by, the thickness, by the size, of the deckle. I mean we used to have thick deckles and thin deckles.

And once you make a lot of paper you’ll find that actually each if you don’t do your dips consistently and if you don’t shake it off, if you don’t flip it off consistently, you can get a really thin sheet and a really thick sheet from the exact same vat.And to stand all day, you know and make paper …It become a habit then!

I think anyway.I agree with what your saying. So, losing your shake just means they don’t do it right all the time. Like maybe they did once, and they just sort of don’t do it as good as they used to. That’s it. That’s right. They used to say it. Yeah.You could say they used it as an excuse just to get to a different job for a while, which is fine, but possibly true.Yeah.

I mean I never saw Walter working in …

I think, (the vat man is). But couching is just as difficult, really, isn’t it. Because you’ve got to lay that sheet correctly, every time, hasn’t he.It’s true I think.Do you think that was originally ‘catching’?

48

I like the theory. I read that in there [the previous interveiw.] I think that’s a good one. I mean we’ll publish it, and make it a new theory! I never heard it before and I think it’s great.What? That couching is catching?

Well we heard it comes from ‘coucher’ the French word.Basically he does catch it doesn’t he.

The point is. Salle [what she says sounds like saul or sol] is a French word. ‘Salle’ really isn’t it? [Salle: Room in the paper mill where sorting, curing and packing of paper took place. Also the department of the paper mill, sometimes called the Finishing House, where paper is sorted and counted.

S-a-l-l-e. Yes.But we always said it was a salle. [what she says sounds like saul or sol]

And why was it called that. It doesn’t mean anything else in English does it?So it must be, come from the French, mustn’t it? There must be a lot from the French.

Well they say deckle is from the German. You have any theories for the word ‘deckle’, where it came from?They say. The papermakers down here used to spell it d-e-k-k-o!

Do you have any theories where that word came from - ‘deckle’ …

No.

None you’ve developed huh?

[break in tape] 4.13

Was there any science to that? I mean, why would you have to fix those little holes? Or did you put a new screen on top of the mould sometimes?Well the deckle, it covered the mould. Actually the deckle edge, the knife edge, the cutting edge of the deckle hit the mould. And behind it was a drain, little holes for the water to run out. The combination of the cutting edge and that [the holes] gave you the sharp, sharp, deckle.

But I thought they didn’t want a really sharp [meaning clean line] deckle?No. They used to complain that the deckle was leaking. This was when the edge got bad. Course things change. I mean years ago they used to like a sharp deckle. This was the thing like. But it gradually got that the deckle edge would be more the thing they wanted.

They wanted it. Got lazier and lazier? [he ignores thisBut with the edge draining so, well, it didn’t matter so much.

Oh I see, yes.Now there’s one more thing. If the deckle, if they had a sharp deckle, the felts wouldn’t need washing as often. [unintelligible]

That would be good then. Now I say in here …

[break in tape.] 5.44

and from the knotter box, after that [comes what]?

A port.

There was what?

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There was a port.

Oh, a port, yes …A sluice and you have a slice at the back. To, actually, to keep the level of the liquid in the knotter box up.

So a slice is a piece of wood that moves in and out?Actually, it was actually a piece of metal, ‘cos, it was zinc.

And it would pop in and out?Yes. You would slide it along to make the hole bigger or smaller. You would slide it along. (Sometimes lapped along the edge soldered [unclear].) But the whole idea of that, (to my mind, I only observed the thing, like,) was you kept the level of the liquid in the knotter box up, so that the knotter plate actually just ran along the top of the stuff. It worked better like that. They always seemed to call it a slicer. But on your chest, where the pulp was coming down, there was a valve and they said thes was for your thickness of the paper, didn’t they.

Yes.

But in this book, it said that the slicer was what decided the thickness of your paper.

Oh I see what you are saying.You could do it, to some extent [with the valve?], but if you shut your slice off, so the paper got thinner, the knotter would get thicker and thicker!

Right. Right. Right.It’s just a, well a stupid little thing really, but …

[Break in tape] 7:11

Beenleigh Manor. Set up the valley.

Beenleigh Manor?Yes it was a little, well manor house. The chap was interested and they got an old gas engine there. Well, he bought it in pieces, that’s how I came to into contact with him really, ‘cos somebody said I knew about gas engines, so could I come and look at this gas engine ‘cos. They’d bought it in pieces and nobody knew how to put it together like, you know. I went and had a look at it and made a base mount and got it going. And they had an open day see, making cider with this thing, with the gas engine driving the gear making cider. And people were fascinated by this old engine puttering, ‘pom … pom … pom’ sort of thing, and one old chap put a seat outside by it all afternoon just watching. It was marvellous out there watching that but …

[Break in Tape]

So you’ve got to tell that story again. So Harrison was ( you’ve got to tell it straight, that was great. Oh I’ll tell it, well!) Harrison discouraged people from coming [to visit the mill] but … I know Dard Hunter got in. I wonder who that lady was you were telling me about?… Dunno.So she’s watching the papermaking …Yes. But this things making cider like, and some people there said, ‘Well, it’s lovely to watch, but what does it do?’

I said ‘Well it’s driving the gear’. ‘Oh’ he said ‘ I thought it was driving the gas engine’. He thought the whole cider making gear was driving the gas engine like!

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[Laughter] That’s great! The story you told before that, well I’ll say, was this lady who was watching the papermaking all day, and then he looks down and says … what was it ... I can’t remember?

‘How does he see that sheet to catch it as it goes by?’

Right. ‘How does he see that sheet to catch it as it goes by!’She thought you caught it on the mould as it went by! [She said] I’d been watching all day and hadn’t seen it at all. It’s worse than telling the Irish stories isn’t it!

[break in tape] 9.08

[I was wandering around]… you know following my nose round the place and finding my way in and out, following it all over the mill. At the top, they weren’t using it then, there was lot of junk, cardboard tubes and things. But on a bench was one or two instruments, ones that I could see. I asked the foreman there what they used them for for. And quite honestly he didn’t know. Old Sam, he wasn’t really a papermaker, quite honestly. He picked it up working in the mill. But he …

Sam Aiston, this is?Yes.But this was like a large compass, magnetic compass. And what remained of was a Kant cell.

A what?A Kant cell. You know, the old dry batteries they used to have?

Ok

Checking on this I saw there was like electrodes and clamps on it. I found out from the old carpenter, like, that this was what they used to put the paper in and check the humidity of the paper... yeah, the humidity.

Oh I see.How much moisture was in it. I assume the current was read off on this meter. And there was also a gadget, with, where you put the sheet in, and wound this thing on the end, and a worm drive pulled out, and it weighed the pressure before it [the paper] broke. And there was quite a lot of things like that. But they were all broke, you know. Not so much broke, as they been left there, and rotted.

Yeah.And I always thought I ought to have saved them, then, the pieces, like …

Yeah.… but I didn’t, and of course they got thrown away. I believe I had it down in the old workshop somewhere the dial…

The dial?…the dial off the wotsit is still there. But these things aren’t [interesting to most folks]. Trouble is you only think about it when it’s too late, don’t you?

Yeah. Totally. I mean, it’s like the, in the blacksmiths shop. See it [the blacksmith shop] was still there up right until the mill shut. With tools and all there. We used to use it occasionally, like, for forging. But there was a big iron thing. On the top was ‘Seccombe1 - Tuckenhay Mill.’ That’s the chap that …

Seccombe? What?S-e-e-c-o-m-b-e. Seccombe - Tuckenhay Mill. This was the iron, this was the branding iron, that they put, you know, on their crates, or woodwork and ladders, and burned the name in. Seccombe was the

1 Tom actually pronounces and spells it out as S-e-e-c-o-m-b-e, but I’ve corrected this to Seccombe throughout, based on spelling in BAHP paper.

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chap that was before. I mean it was before Millbourn was Symons, and before Symons it was Symons-Turner, or Turner-Symons, and before that it was Turner, and Seccombe was before that … [actually Seccombe was after Turner and before Turner-Symons

Oh, and they still had brands under the Seccombe name? [I misunderstood, thinking they still used these, but he was just talking about how much history was in the mill.]And the brand was there. And I thought, well I’ll keep that like. And of course this was, you know, after the mill closed, you know. And I thought I must go and get that. And it had gone!

Somebody had already got it!Somebody had got it. There was all sorts of things like that, that we ought to have kept. Peter [Wheeleer], he would have like to have had that. A. Seccombe. Seccombe. I mean everybody always told me that the chap was called ‘Seccombe’. Always called him ‘Seccombe’.

But you said … you spelled it S-e …S-double-e-c-u-m-b-e.

C-u-m-b-e. Huh, Seccombe. Interesting.Well that’s how it was on this fire iron. And I bet that [unintelligible].

Yeah probably!We had to laugh because the old men, when I was a kid you know, they would say ‘Oh that was back in Seccombe’s day.’ You know. ‘That wouldn’t have happened back in Seccombe’s day.’ You know. And nobody could ever tell me who Seccombe was! You know.Even the chap who complained about the Lister (?) drier said ‘They tried that back in Seccombe’s day!’

It was sort of a catch phrase.A way of saying things.Yes. If it was too long ago, ‘That was back in Seccombe’s day’Right at the top of the mill, but beyond where these instruments was, built into the walls was some ironwork that I had a look at …

Some what?Iron works. Built in the wall. I asked what was this. Oh, that was the old trip hammers. And this apparently was, before they Hollanders they used to beat the pulp up with trip hammers. And the old trip hammers was still there. Quite a bit of them, like was still there. But they’ve probably been left out, and gone for scrap since then.

Interesting.That ought to have been saved like. But that was ‘Back in Seccombe’s day,’ wasn’t it!

[General laughter]

And there was the old waterwheel, the frame of the waterwheel was still there. That’s gone now. That was before Symons took it over, that mill was driven by four or five waterwheels.

Yeah.Sort of in a cascade down through the different places where they were, all down through it.

Driving different bits of the operation.Yeah, yeah. When you think of it, water played a very big part in the valleys. That was the only power.Without the water, disregarding the pulp bit, you can’t make paper, can you!

No, no. And the quality of water too.Yes. Have you got a water supply?

No, just city water.

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I just wondered if you had a stream …

Nothing like that, no.There were two supplies of water to Tuckenhay Mill when I was there. There was the leat, that was the water for the turbine.

The leat?Leat, it was a ....

From the river.Oh the Lea river? …From the pond to the turbine top was the leat. L-e-a-t.

It’s a mill leat. It’s a waterway.

Oh that’s a part of the …Yes, it was a water channel.

OK.

There was that supply. And there was also, way up the valley, about a mile up, there was spring on the hill which was capped in. And they used the supply of that, come by pipe right (the way) down into the mill. And this was beautiful water.

So that must have been what they used to fill the vat.That’s what they used to use for the processing. That was process water. The other was power water.

This is what Peter [Wheeler]uses now …One was process and the other was power?For his … for his …Pools?Swimming pools. And he takes the heat from that water to heat his pools.The heat from …?The heat from the spring water, you know. He’s got a heat exchanger. Heat pumps. You know every kilowatt of energy you shove in the heat pump takes two kilowatts out of the water. It takes double the heat. It keeps the swimming pools warm.

Oh by sort of a turbine pump. Interesting. Yeah.But that’s beautiful water. I mean when we lived up at the top, I always used to go round and get a thing of water nearly every day, to take it up and drink it.

Yeah.It was much better than the mains. The spring water had a little sparkle, you know, where the mains water is chlorinated. And …The mains water yeah.Though it came from the moor. Out there at the Avon dam, it was still, sort of dead, you know chlorinated and killed …In Maidstone they talked about how they loved to drink water. Drank and drank and drank it. Probably because it’s such nice water. Makes good paper, tastes good.Yeah, yeah, yeah. That’s right.

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